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NITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION 

LLETIN, 1913, NO. 41 WHOLE NUMBER 551 




PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS BY 

CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES OF THE COMMISSION OF 

THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 



ON 



£ 



REORGANIZATION OF 
EDUCATION 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1913 



ieiwgfi^ h 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 












[Note. — With the exceptions indicated, the documents named below will be s»> 
of charge upon application to the Commissioner of Education, Washington, D. C. 
marked with an asterisk (*) are no longer available for free distribution, but 1 
had of the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 
upon payment of the price stated. Documents marked with a dagger (t) are 
print. Titles are abridged.] 

1913. 

*No. 1. Course of study for rural school teachers. Mutchler and Craig. 

No. 2. Mathematics at West Point and Annapolis. 

No. 3. Report of committee on uniform records and reports. 

No. 4. Mathematics in technical secondary schools. 
•No. 5. A study of expenses of city school systems. Harlan Updegraff. 
♦No. 6. Agricultural education in secondary schools. 10 ets. 

No. 7. Educational status of nursing. M. Adelaide Nutting. 
*No. 8. Peace day. Fannie Fern Andrews. 5 cts. 

No. 9. Country schools for city boys. William Starr Myers. 
*No. 10. Bibliography of education in agriculture and home economics. 
♦No. 11. Current educational topics, No. I. 5 cts. 
♦No. 12. Dutch schools of New Netherlancl. W. H. Kilpatrick. 20 cts. 
♦No. 13. Influences tending to improve work of teacher of mathematics. 

No. 14. Report of the American commissioners on the teaching of mathoi 
♦No. 15. Current educational topics, No. II. 10 cts. 
♦No. 16. The reorganized school playground. Henry S. Curtis. 5 cts. 
♦No. 17. The Montessori system of education. Anna Tolman Smith. 5 cts* 
♦No. 18. Teaching language through agriculture, etc. M. A. Leiper. 5 cts. 
♦No. 19. Professional distribution of college graduates. B. B. Burritt. 10 
♦No. 20. Readjustment of a rural high school. H. A. Brown. 10 cts. 

No. 21. Urban and rural common-school statistics. H. Updegraff and 
Hood. 

No. 22. Public and private high schools. 
•No. 23. Special collections in libraries. W. D. Johnston and I. G. Mudge. 

No. 24. Current educational topics, No. III. 

No. 25. List of publications of the United States Bureau of Education. ' 
•No. 26. Bibliography of child study for the years 1910-11. 10 cts. B 

No. 27. History of public-school education in Arkansas. Stephen B. W< 

No. 28. Cultivating school grounds in Wake County, N. C. Zebulon Jud 

No. 29. Bibliography of the teaching of mathematics, 1900-1912. 

No. 30. Latin-American universities and special schools. Edgar Ewing i: i 

No. 31. Educational directory, 1912. 

No. 32. Bibliography of exceptional children and their education. A. MaeDonaifi 
•No. 33. Statistics of State universities, etc., 1912. 5 cts. 
(Continued on p. 3 of cover.) 




UNITED STATES BUREAU OF EDUCATION 

BULLETIN, 1913, NO. 41 WHOLE NUMBER 551 



(V. : 



2 3 s o <M bTV O-^A a+TVlC. JlaTftS, 



PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS BY 

CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES OF THE COMMISSION OF 

THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION 



ON 



THE REORGANIZATION OF 
SECONDARY EDUCATION 




1 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1913 



U^i^ 



v v 



a or o. 

DEC 10 I! 



I 






CONTENTS. 



Page 

Letter of transmittal 5 

Statement of chairmen of the committee on articulation of high school 

and college 7 

Origin of the commission 7 

Results to be secured 8 

Membership of the commission 8 

Plan of work 9 

Statement of chairman of the committee on English 9 

The point of view 10 

The plan 11 

Aims 11 

Problems 14 

Statement of chairman of the committee on social studies 16 

The point of view 1G 

Community civics 18 

Survey of vocations 22 

History 23 

Economics 24 

Civic theory and practice 26 

Statement of chairman of the committee on natural science^ 28 

The opportunity of the committee 28 

The organization of the committee 29 

The plan of work „ 29 

Statement of chairman of committee on ancient languages 32 

The status of Latin in secondary schools — questions, criticisms, sug- 
gestions 32 

Statement of chairman of committee on modern languages 40 

Abstract . 40 

I. Aims 41 

II. Method—— 44 

III. Material 48 

IV. Details of procedure 49 

V. Teachers and texts ! : 56 

Statement of chairman of the committee on household arts 58 

Statement of chairman of the committee on manual arts 62 

Tentative conclusions 64 

Problems for discussion 64 

Experiments to be made 64 

Statement of chairman of the committee on music 66 

Ensemble singing 68 

Chorus practice in first and second years 69 

Chorus practice in third and fourth years 70 

Musical appreciation 70 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

Statement of chairman of the committee on music — Continued. page. 

Harmony 72 

Counterpoint 72 

Orchestra ensemble 73 

Credit for music applied under special teachers outside of school 73 

Statement of chairman of the committee on business 75 

Aim of the commercial course 75 

Shall short courses be given 75 

Should commercial work be given in the seventh and eighth grades of 

the grammar school 76 

Plans for committee work 77 

Index 79 



LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL 



Department of the Interior, 

Bureau of Education, 
Washington, September 23, 1913. 
Sir: The whole problem of secondary education, both as to aims 
and as to methods, is now undergoing investigation. The demands 
for the readjustment of the work of the high school are insistent. 
This bureau has no specialists in secondary education and is unable 
to respond as it should to the many requests for information in 
regard to the trend of thought on this subject and for advice in 
regard to the organization and readjustment of high-school sys- 
tems. It, therefore, welcomes all the more heartily the cooperation 
of the commission of the National Education Association on the re- 
organization of secondary education. This commission is attempting, 
as the first step in the more thorough study of the high school and its 
work, to collect the best opinion in this country in regard to the 
aims and methods that should prevail in secondary education. The 
accompanying manuscript consists of preliminary statements by the 
several chairmen of this commission. Their publication for distri- 
bution among principals and teachers of high schools and students 
of secondary education for their criticism will greatly facilitate the 
work of the commission. I, therefore, recommend that they be pub- 
lished as a bulletin of the Bureau of Education. The final report 
of the commission should then be published as a revision of this 
bulletin. 

Respectfully submitted. 

P. P. Claxton, 

Commissioner. 
The Secretary of the Interior, 

5 



THE REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIEMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
ARTICULATION OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 

ORIGIN OF THE COMMISSION. 

The commission on the reorganization of secondary education is a 
logical outgrowth of the first report of the committee on the articu- 
lation of high school and college presented in 1911. At that time the 
committee submitted a broad definition of a well-planned high-school 
course and recommended the liberalizing of college entrance require- 
ments so that the satisfactory completion of any such well-planned 
high-school course should be accepted as preparation for college. 
This report was widely distributed, and its recommendations are 
receiving approval by an increasing number of educational associa- 
tions, colleges, and State boards of education. . 

It was recognized that such liberalizing of college entrance re- 
quirements would bring to the high school not only greater oppor- 
tunity for usefulness, but also increased responsibility for the 
reorganization of secondary education. Consequently, in 1912, this 
committee recommended the appointment of subcommittees to re- 
port upon the reorganization of the various high-school subjects. 
Accordingly, 10 subcommittees were appointed by the president of 
the National Education Association during the ensuing year. Great 
care was taken in the selection of these committees. Many people, 
including each State superintendent, were asked to suggest persons 
best qualified for this important work. The members are well dis- 
tributed geographically, 30 States being represented. 

In 1913 the committee on the articulation of high school and col- 
lege recommended the formation of a commission to include the com- 
mittees already organized, a committee on mathematics, a committee 
on art, and a reviewing committee. This report was adopted by the 
_i\ secondary department of the National Education Association, and 
-vr the formation of the commission was authorized by the board of 

!„VJ directors of that association July 13, 1913. 
sp* 
apj 

i 



u 






8 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

RESULTS TO BE SECURED. 

It is hoped that this commission will — 

(a) Formulate statements of the valid aims, efficient methods, and 
kinds of material whereby each subject may best serve the needs of 
high-school pupils. 

(b) Enable the inexperienced teacher to secure at the outset a 
correct point of view. 

(c) Place the needs of the high school before all agencies that are 
training teachers for positions in high schools. 

(d) Secure college entrance recognition for courses that meet 
actual needs of high-school pupils. 

MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMISSION. 

The commission will consist of the following 14 committees: 

(a) Twelve committees on various high-school subjects, 10 of 
which were appointed in 1912-13. 

(b) The committee on the articulation of high school and college, 
organized in 1910-11. 

(c) A reviewing committee composed of the chairmen of the pre- 
ceding committees and not more than 10 "members at large." 

The chairmen of the committees already organized are as follows: 

Committee on English — James F. Hosic, Chicago Teachers' College, Chicago, 111. 
Committee on social studies— Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Bureau of Education, 

Washington, D. C. 
Committee on natural sciences -William Orr, deputy State commissioner of 

education, Boston, Mass. 
Committee on ancient languages — Dr. Waiter Eugene Foster, Stuyvesant High 

School. New York, N. Y. 
Committee on modern languages— William B. Snow, English High School, 

Boston. Mass. 
Committee on household arts — Dr. Amy Louise Daniels, University of Missouri, 

Columbia, Mo. 
Committee on manual arts — Prof. Frank M. Leavitt, University of Chicago, 

Chicago. 111. 
Committee on music — Will Earhart. director of music. Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Committee on business — A. L. Pugh, High School of Commerce, New York, N. Y. 
Committee on agriculture — Prof. A. V. Storm, University of Minnesota. St. 

Paul, Minn. 
Committee on the articulation of high school and college — Clarence D. Kingsley, 

high school inspector, Ford Building, Boston, Mass. 

The full membership of each of these committees, with two excep- 
tions, is given in this bulletin at the end of the statement of the chair- 
man of that committee. It is probable that some of the commit- 
tees will be enlarged. 






ARTICULATION OF HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE. 9 

PLAN OF WORK. 

Several committees have already made substantial progress; two 
joint conferences were held in Philadelphia, one in December, 1912, 
and the other in February, 1913; and preliminary reports were dis- 
cussed at various round tables of the National Education Associa- 
tion, July, 1913. 

The reviewing committee will probably meet for a three-day con- 
ference at the University of Chicago, December 29, 30, and 31, 1913. 
At this conference reports of the various committees will be con- 
sidered in detail, modifications will be suggested, and the results 
will be published as the first report of the commission. It is hoped 
that this first report will be sent to every high school in the United 
States. 

In July, 1914, there will be opportunity for a free discussion of the 
reports at various meetings of the National Education Association. 

The final report of the commission is not expected before 1915. 

Each person receiving this bulletin is urged to send suggestions 
and criticisms to the chairman of the appropriate committee. 

Clarence D. Kingsley, Chairman. 

Ford Building, Boston, Mass. 

The other members of the committee on the articulation of high 
school and college are as follows: 

William M. Butler, principal Yeatinan High School, St. Louis, Mo. 
Frank B. Dyer, superintendent of schools, Boston, Mass. 
Charles W. Evans, supervisor of English, East Orange, N. J. 
Charles H. Judd, professor of education, University of Chicago, 111. 
Alexis F. Lange, dean of college faculties, University of California, Cal. 
W. D. Lewis, principal William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 
William Orr, deputy State commissioner of education, Boston, Mass. 
William H. Smiley, superintendent of schools, Denver, Colo. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 

ENGLISH. 

In order that the report of this committee may represent as fully 
as possible the results of study and experiment in every quarter, the 
cooperation of all existing organizations interested in the problem 
has been and will continue to be sought. The national conference on 
uniform entrance requirements in English, on May 30, 1911, in- 
structed its executive committee to cooperate; in like manner the 
National Speech Arts Association and the conference on public 
speaking of the New England and the North Atlantic States directed 
appropriate committees to render aid. 



10 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

The National Council of Teachers of English is yet more closely 
associated with the work. This council is broadly representative in 
the character of its membership, both individual and collective, and is 
thus well fitted to join in the enterprise. The members of its com- 
mittee on the high-school course, which recently collected information 
for a report on types of organization of high -school English, are par- 
ticipating actively in compiling a handbook. The members of the 
committee of the council are as follows : 

Franklin T. Baker, teachers' college, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. 

Elizabeth G. Barbour, girls' high school, Louisville, Ky. 

C. C. Certain, high school, Birmingham, Ala. 

Allison Gaw, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Cal. 

Mrs. Henry Hulst, Central High School, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

William D. Lewis, principal, William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 

E. H. Kemper McComb, Manual Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Edwin T. Reed, Agricultural College, Corvallis, Oreg. 

Elizabeth Richardson, girls' high school, Boston, Mass. 

James Fleming Hosic, chairman, Chicago Teachers' College, Chicago, 111. 

It may be noted by comparing the above list with the names of the 
committee appearing at the end of this statement that the committee 
of the council contains three members, including the chairman, who 
are also members of the committee in the commission on the reorgani- 
zation of secondary education. 

THE POINT OF VIEW. 

The committee will endeavor to make a fresh study of English in 
secondary schools. These schools have developed so remarkably in 
the past two decades that their function of preparation for advanced 
academic study is completely overshadowed by other functions. 
Moreover, these schools serve such various constituencies that the 
widest possible freedom is necessary. Hence the committee will con- 
sider the experience of those who have sought to meet the needs of 
particular communities. A course which fits the life of the school and 
prepares young people for the life of the home and of the social and 
industrial community will, it is now believed, best equip for attend- 
ance on higher academic or professional institutions. 

With this ideal before them, the various subdivisions of the com- 
mittee will undertake to select material and outline activities for the 
successive years of the course. The groundwork of composition will 
consist of those projects for speaking and writing which young people 
can be made to feel are worth while. Rhetorical theory will thus be 
made to serve as the handmaid of expression, not the occasion of it. 
Books for reading, likewise, will be selected because they are capable 
of producing a genuine reaction, not because they are illustrative of 
literary history. In both composition and literature there will doubt- 



COMMITTEE ON ENGLISH. 11 

less be a shift of emphasis toward those subjects and activities which 
are of greatest value in active life — for example, oral expression — 
and toward modern books and periodicals. It is not to be inferred, 
howeA'er, that the supreme values inherent in the world's literary 
masterpieces will be overlooked. 

THE PLAN. 

A general plan for a handbook has been agreed upon. A section 
will be devoted to each of the following : 

(1) An account of the origin and labors of the committee. 

(2) A summary of the work in English of the first six years of the 
elementary school. 

(3) The aims which should guide the English work of the six 
following years, namely, the seventh and eighth years of the present 
elementary school and the four years of the present high school. 

(4) A general course of study for the later six years, providing 
abundant material for choice. 

(5) Several examples of more limited courses as worked out to 
meet particular conditions. 

(6) A suggestive outline of activities in composition (speaking, 
writing, spelling, grammar, and rhetoric). 

(7) A suggestive outline of activities in literature (interpretation 
of poetry, fiction, and drama, reading aloud, dramatization, lives of 
authors, literary history). 

(8) A list of books for pupils' general reading, with suggestions 
as to guidance. 

(9) General suggestions as to plans of faculty cooperation in 
English instruction, size of classes, equipment, etc. 

(10) A bibliography upon the preceding topics. 

Such a handbook will be useful to administrators in arranging 
courses of study and in providing equipment, and it will aid the 
teacher at work, particularly the teacher of limited experience. 

aims. 

The committee believes that a single statement of aims will prove 
serviceable as a guide to the English work of all schools. Broadly 
speaking, it should be the purpose of every English teacher, first, to 
quicken the spirit and kindle the mind and imagination of his pupils, 
and to develop habits of weighing and judging human conduct with 
the hope of leading them to higher living; second, to supply the 
pupils with an effective tool for use in their future private and 
public life — i. e., the best command of language which, under the 
circumstances, can be given them. 






12 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

The particular results to be sought may be somewhat specifically 
indicated as follows : * 

I. In general, the immediate aim of secondary English is twofold: 

(a) To give the pupil command of the art of expression 

in speech and in writing. 

(b) To teach him to read thoughtfully and with appre- 

ciation, to form in him a taste for good reading, and 

to teach him how to find books that are worth while. 

These two aims are fundamental; they must be kept in mind in 

planning the whole course and applied in the teaching of every term. 

II. Expression in speech includes: 

(a) Ability to answer clearly, briefly, and exactly a ques- 

tion on which one has the necessary information. 

(b) Ability to collect and organize material for oral 

discourse. 

(c) Ability to present with dignity and effectiveness to 

a class, club, or other group material already 
organized. 

(d) Ability to join in a conversation or an informal dis- 

cussion, contributing one's share of information or 
opinion, without wandering from the point and 
without discourtesy to others. 

■(e) Ability (for those who have or hope to develop quali- 
ties of leadership) to address an audience or conduct 
a public meeting, after suitable preparation and 
practice, with proper dignity and formality, but 
without stiffness or embarrassment. 

(/) Ability to read aloud in such a way as to convey to 
the hearers the writer's thought and spirit and to 
interest them in the matter presented. 

Note. — All expression in speech demands distinct and natural articulation, correct 
pronunciation, the exercise of a sense for correct and idiomatic speech, and the use of an 
agreeahle and well-managed voice. The speaker should be animated by a sincere desire 
to stir up some interest, idea, or feeling in his hearers. 

III. Expression in writing includes: 

(a) Ability to write a courteous letter according to the 

forms in general use, and of the degree of formality 
or informality appropriate to the occasion. 

(b) Ability to compose on the first draft a clear and read- 

able paragraph or series of paragraphs on familiar 
subject matter, with due observance of unity and 
order and with some specific detail. 

1 This outline, here considerably modified, was originally prepared by Allan Abbott, of 
the Horace Mann School, Columbia University, and appeared in the English Journal for 
October, 1912. 



\ 






COMMITTEE ON ENGLISH. 13 

(c) Ability to analyze and present in outline form the 

gist of a lecture or piece of literature, and to write 
an expansion of such an outline. 

(d) Ability, with due time for study and preparation, to 

plan and work out a clear, well-ordered, and inter- 
esting report of some length upon one's special in- 
terests — literary, scientific, commercial, or what not. 

(e) Ability (for those who have literary tastes or ambi- 

tions) to write a short story or other bit of imagi- 
native composition with some vigor and personal- 
ity of style and in proper form to be submitted for 
publication, and to arrange suitable stories in form 
for dramatic presentation. 

Note. — All expression in writing demands correctness as to formal details, namely, a 
legible and firm handwriting, correct spelling, correctness in grammar and idiom, and 
observance of the ordinary rules for capitals and marks of punctuation ; the writer 
should make an effort to gain an enlarged vocabulary, a concise and vigorous style, and 
firmness and flexibility in constructing sentences and paragraphs. 

IV. Knowledge of books and power to read them thoughtfully and 
with appreciation includes: 

(a) Ability to find pleasure in reading books by good 

authors, both standard and contemporary, with an 
increasing knowledge of such books and increasing- 
ability to distinguish what is really good from what 
is trivial and weak. 

(b) Knowledge of a few of the greatest authors, their 

lives, their chief works, and the reasons for their 
importance in their own age and in ours. 

(c) Understanding of the leading features in structure 

and style of the main literary types, such as novels, 
dramas, essays, lyric poems. 

(d) Skill in the following three methods of reading, and 

knowledge of when to use each: 

(1) Cursory reading, to cover a great deal of 

ground, getting quickly at essentials. 

(2) Careful reading, to master the book, with 

exact understanding of its meaning and 
implications. 

(3) Consultation, to trace quickly and accu- 

rately a particular fact by means of in- 
dexes, guides, and reference books. 

(e) The habit of weighing, line by line, passages of espe- 

cial significance, while other parts of the book may 
be read but once. 



14 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

(/) The power to enter imaginatively into the thought of 
an author, interpreting his meaning in the light of 
one's own experience, and to show, perhaps, by 
selecting passages and reading them aloud, that the 
book is a source of intellectual enjoyment. 

Note. — AH b»okwork should be done with a clear understanding on the student's part 
as to what method of reading he is to use and which of the purposes mentioned above is 
the immediate one. To form a taste for good reading it is desirable that a considerable 
part of the pupil's outside reading be under direction. To this end lists of recommended 
books should be provided for each grade or term. These lists should be of considerable 
length and variety, to suit individual tastes and degrees of maturity. 

V. The kinds of skill enumerated above are taught for three funda- 
mental reasons: 

(a) Cultural. To open to the student new and higher 

forms of pleasure. 

(b) Vocational. To fit the student for the highest success 

in his chosen calling. 

(c) Social and ethical. To present to the student noble 

ideals, aid in the formation of his character, and 
make him more efficient and actively interested in 
his relations with and service to others in the com- 
munity and in the nation. 

Note. — These fundamental aims should be implicit in the teacher's attitude and in 
the spirit of the class work, but should not be explicitly set forth as should the im- 
mediate aim of each class exercise. 

PROBLEMS. 

The committee has formulated a series of problems which must be 
worked out. These may be briefly indicated as follows: 
I. In general : 

(a) What is the most effective division of the school 

course? Is it, for example, that which provides for 
an intermediate school to include grades seven, 
eight, and nine? 

(b) Should the course be planned by years or by half 

years (semesters) ? 

(c) What minimum of time for class recitations per week 

should be demanded? 

(d) Should a choice be offered in the twelfth or in any 

other grade between a general course in English and 
specialized courses in English, such as commercial 
English? 

(e) How shall due emphasis be secured for speaking. 

reading, and writing of the more practical matter- 
of-fact sort without at the same time neglecting the 
literary or aesthetic? 



COMMITTEE ON ENGLISH, 



15 



II. As to composition: 

a) How shall progress from year to year be indicated 
and measured? 

b) How shall the principles of grammar and rhetoric be 
sufficiently enforced without over-formalizing the 
instruction and preventing spontaneity and the 
operation of specific purposes? 

c) How much of the time should be devoted to oral com- 
position and what are the proper relationships be- 
tween speaking and writing? 

d) To what extent may pupils be taught to criticise their 
own work and that of their classmates ? 

e) What is the value of the various methods of criticism 
employed by teachers? 

/) What reading is essential to the work in composition ? 

g) What cooperation of all departments in the work of 
establishing right habits of collecting and ordering 
of ideas and of clear and correct expression of them 
is possible and desirable? 

h) What legitimate opportunities for practice in ex- 
pression does the social life of the school afford 
and how can these be most effectively utilized ? 

i) What equipment does the work require? 

III. As to literature : 
a) How shall progress from year to year be indicated 

and measured? 
~b) How shall sufficient knowledge of the backgrounds 
of literature be insured without defeating the ends 
of appreciation and a habit of reading books of 
lasting value? 

c) How much of the time should be devoted to oral read- 
ing and how shall this be made at once a social ac- 
complishment and a gateway to understanding? 

d) What are the proper limits of the study of literary 
art in the various years? How shall pupils attain 
to standards of aesthetic judgment? 

e) What part should oral and written composition have 
in the study of literature? What provision should 
be made for dramatization ? 

/) What principles should determine the selection of 
books to be read? For example, should American 
authors have preference? 



16 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

(g) How shall pupils be trained in the use of current 
books and periodicals and in the choice and enjoy- 
ment of current plays? 
(h) What responsibility shall the English teacher assume 
for the general reading of the pupils and for their 
library training? 
(i) What equipment does the work require ? 
The members of the committee will welcome information and sug- 
gestions from all who are interested. They wish particularly to learn 
about the work of schools in agricultural and industrial communities 
which have developed English courses to meet their peculiar needs. 

James Fleming Hosic, Chairman. 
Chicago Teachers College. 

The other members of the committee on English are as follows: 
Emma J. Breck, Oakland High School, Oakland, Cal. 
Randolph T. Congdon, State department of education, Albany, N. Y. 
Mary E. Courtenay, Englewood High School. Chicago, 111. 
Charles W. Evans, supervisor of English, East Orange, N. J. 
Benjamin A. Heydrick, High School of Commerce, New York, N. Y. 
Henry W. Holmes, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
Mrs. Henry Hulst, Central High School. Grand Rapids, Mich. 
Walter J. Hunting, superintendent of schools, Carson City, Nev. 
W. D. Lewis, principal. William Penn High School. Philadelphia, Pa. 
May McKitrick. East Technical High School, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Edwin L. Miller, Central High School, Detroit, Mich. 
Edwin T. Shurter, University of Texas, Austin, Tex. 
Elmer W. Smith. Colgate University. Hamilton. N. Y. 
Charles S. Thomas, Newton High School, Newtonville, Mass. 



1 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
SOCIAL STUDIES. 1 

THE POINT OF VIEW. 

It is probable that the high-school teachers of social studies have 
the best opportunity ever offered to any social group to improve the 
citizenship of the land. This sweeping claim is based upon the fact 
that the million and a third high-school pupils is probably the largest 
group of persons in the world who can be directed to a serious and 
systematic effort, both through study and practice, to acquire the 
social spirit. 

Good citizenship should be the aim of social studies in the high 
school. While the administration and instruction throughout the 
school should contribute to the social welfare of the community, it 

1 The term " social studies " is used to include history, civics, and economics. 



COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 17 

is maintained that social studies have direct responsibility in this 
field. Facts, conditions, theories, and activities that do not contribute 
rather directly to the appreciation of methods of human betterment 
have no claim. Under this test the old civics, almost exclusively a 
study of Government machinery, must give way to the new civics, 
a study of all manner of social efforts to improve mankind. It is 
not so important that the pupil know how the President is elected 
as that he shall understand the duties of the health officer in his com- 
munity. The time formerly spent in the effort to understand the 
process of passing a law over the President's veto is now to be more 
profitably used in the observation of the vocational resources of the 
community. In line with this emphasis the committee recommends 
that social studies in the high school shall include such topics as 
the following: Community health, housing and hemes, public recrea- 
tion, good roads, community education, poverty and the care of the 
poor, crime and reform, family income, savings banks and life in- 
surance, human rights versus property rights, impulsive action of 
mobs, the selfish conservatism of tradition, and public utilities. 

Long as the foregoing list is, it is quite apparent that many more 
vital topics could be. added. It is therefore important to understand 
that it is not the purpose to give the pupil an exhaustive knowledge 
of any one of these subjects, but rather to give him a clue to the 
significance of these matters to him and to his community, and to 
arouse in him a desire to know more about his environment. It is 
to help him to think " civically " and, if possible, to live " civically." 
Teacher and pupil must realize that they are studying living things. 
They must not be content with the printed page. Everything and 
everybody in the community must be drafted into the service of the 
boy and girl striving to become an effective part of the " body poli- 
tic " and a constructive member of the social group. Companions 
in the schoolroom and on the playgrounds, workers in philanthropy 
and reform, Government officials and business leaders, voters and 
laborers of every class are all material for the classroom and labo- 
ratory in social studies. 

History, too, must answer the test of good citizenship. The old 
chronicler who recorded the deeds of kings and warriors and neg- 
lected the labors of the common man is dead. The great palaces and 
cathedrals and pyramids are often but the empty shells of a parasitic 
growth on the working group. The elaborate descriptions of these 
old tombs are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals compared 
to the record of the joy and sorrows, the hopes and disappointments 
of the masses, who are infinitely more important than any arrange- 
ment of wood and stone and iron. In this spirit recent history is 
more important than that of ancient times; the history of our 
10602°— 13 2 



I) 



I 

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18 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

own country than that of foreign lands; the record of our own 
institutions and activities than that of strangers; the labors and 
plans of the multitudes than the pleasures and dreams of the few. 

In order that the aim described above shall be realized, the com- 
mittee proposes to outline the five following units of social studies: 

(1) Community civics and survey of vocations. 

(2) European history to 1600 or 1700 (including English and 
colonial American history). 

(3) European history since 1600 or 1700 (including contemporary 
civilization). 

(4) United States history since 1760 (including current events). 

(5) Economics and civic theory and practice. 

COMMUNITY CIVICS. 

The term " civics " is used here to include all the possible activities 
of the good citizen, whether as an individual or with private organi- 
zations or with government. Community civics is intended to acquaint 
pupils with the civic condition of their own community. Pupils 
visit in person and study at close range the vital elements of their 
city, village, or rural area. Personal visitation and first-hand infor- 
mation is a distinctive feature of the course. It insures the reality 
and simplicity necessary to a vital knowledge of social forces. It 
tends to dignify those forces and those places which the pupil usually 
despises because they are familiar. Finally, knowledge of the neigh- 
borhood will show the pupil how an effective education will make 
him a productive citizen. 

It is the belief of the committee that such a course should be offered 
to the pupil as early as his powers of appreciation allow. The ad- 
vantages of early acquaintance with the civic conditions are: First, 
that the larger number of pupils in the lower grades would be 
reached ; and, second, that many pupils realizing the value of educa- 
tion would remain longer in school. In view of this conviction it is 
fortunate that several experiments have been successfully made in 
the elementary grades. The following account, taken from an article 
by Dr. J. Lynn Barnard, a member of this committee, describes the 
methods which he found successful in the elementary grades of his 
practice school: 

In the practice school (fifth to eighth school years, inclusive) of the Phila- 
delphia School of Pedagogy, the following tentative course in civics is gradually 
evolving, with evident interest to both pupil and teacher : 

In the first half of the fifth year a beginning is made with the child's com- 
mon experience within his home and his school. Gas is the first subject taken 
up informally and the children are encouraged to tell what they know about it 
and its uses. The teacher guides the conversation so that it naturally leads to 
the question of where we get our gas. The gas pipe is traced through the 



COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 19 

house to the meter and then to the street. When it is learned that the gas is 
manufactured at a central plant the children are encouraged to visit it, with 
teacher or parent, and the result of the visit is a letter or report on what was 
seen. In like manner the subjects of electricity, water, sewage, and the tele- 
phone are considered. After the service of the community to the child has 
been shown with each of the above, the reciprocal duties of the child to the com- 
munity are brought out by careful questioning, which follows the lines of the 
pupils' own observation and experience. 

In the second half of the fifth year what the child sees by looking out of the 
window, at home or at school, is drawn upon for material. For example, the 
policeman, the fireman, the postman, the street sweeper, the garbage collector, 
the ash collector are severally taken up in the manner already described, never 
omitting a possible trip and report or forgetting to emphasize the correspond- 
ing duties of citizenship resting upon the young citizens of the class. 

During the early part of the sixth year some of the educational institutions 
of the city are visited, such as schools, playgrounds, parks, libraries, museums, 
historical buildings and localities. Later in the year visits are made to the 
various public institutions, such as city hall, bourse, customhouse, mint, armories 
and arsenals, hospitals, and juvenile court. No regular textbooks are used in 
the fifth and sixth years, but much supplementary material is introduced by 
the teacher to aid in the interpretation of what has been observed on the various 
trips. Among other suitable reading books, special mention ought to be made 
of Richmand and Wallach's Good Citizenship and Hill's Lessons for Junior 
Citizens. By the close of the sixth year the pupils have acquired a fund of 
first-hand civic information and experience of a concrete and practical nature, 
no attempt having been made to generalize or to discuss political rights or 
duties from a legal standpoint. In fact, the word " government " is not even 
used ; only the more general term " community." 

In the seventh year more attention may safely be given to the end and aim 
of governmental activity and the way in which public and private agencies 
unite to accomplish results. For the purpose no better introduction can be 
found for Philadelphia girls and boys than the beginnings and growth of 
community action in their home city. They will see how various civic func- 
tions, such as street paving and cleaning, and water supply, at first performed 
by each householder for himself, were gradually taken over by each munici- 
pality and performed for all alike. This concrete example of community 
growth leads naturally to a discussion of the meaning of " community " and 
" citizenship." The important truth is impressed upon the pupils that they 
are now citizens of various communities, namely, the home, the school, the 
playground, the church, the city, the State, the Nation. The family and the 
home as factors in this community life are particularly emphasized, that the 
children may rightly appreciate the civic importance of the home. Then fol- 
lows the story of the making of American citizens out of a constant stream of 
foreign immigrants, both as to naturalization itself and as to the educative 
process that may fit the strangers into their new city environment. A series 
of studies is next undertaken to find out how the community aids the normal 
citizen in relation to life, health, property, working and business conditions, 
transportation and communication, education, recreation, religious worship. 
This is naturally followed by a brief study of how the community takes care 
of its subnormal citizens, usually referred to as the dependents, the defectives, 
and the delinquents. Emphasis is placed upon the idea of prevention, or of 
restoration wherever possible. Poverty, vice, and crime are coming to be recog- 
nized as social diseases. This is a fact which every boy and girl should be 



I 



1 



20 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

made to feel. As each function is discussed, the organization of the city gov- 
ernment to do this community work is outlined, with frequent reference to the 
Philadelphia charter and to ordinances of councils. Careful consideration is 
given to the cooperation of private agencies with various municipal bureaus 
and departments, that the pupils may see how community and citizen work 
together. How the city gets its money to do all it does is briefly explained. 

By the time the eighth year is reached the pupil has become so thoroughly 
grounded in the governmental activities of the city that he is ready to be 
taken into the larger field of State and Nation. During the first term the work 
shapes itself as follows: First, how the community aids the normal citizen in 
his desire for health, security of person and property, business opportunity, 
education; and second, how the community provides for its unfortunates, by 
means of charitable and penal institutions. This includes some consideration 
of the simpler forms of business law and practice, and also some of the com- 
moner types of criminal offenses and the method of their repression and pun- 
ishment. The governmental organization — legislative, executive, judicial — 
back of these activities is sketched in outline, both as to selection and control 
of State officials, not forgetting to discover where the money is found to keep 
the machinery going. During the second term of the eighth year the pupils 
learn, as fully as the time permits, how the Federal Government looks after 
the varied needs and interests of a hundred million citizens and subjects, at 
home and abroad. 

While the study of municipal government is going on. the class is organized 
on the plan of the Philadelphia city government, so far as practicable, and 
then according to the commission plan and by an easy transition, when State 
and National Governments are reached the class takes on those organizations, 
respectively. This will be recognized as different from the well-known " school 
city " plan in that the class is organized for purposes of instruction and not 
for purposes of self-government. 

For the seventh and eighth years, a helpful textbook has been found which 
admirably illustrates the newer civics. Dunn's The Community and the Citizen. 

It will be observed that throughout the last two years, when the more serious 
study of civics is being attempted, the order followed is invariably that of the 
child's own interest and appreciation, namely, from function to structure, from 
the executive department which does things to the legislative which plans the 
things to be done and the judicial which interprets and helps enforce those 
plans; and then, if necessary, to the charter or constitution which lays down 
the legal powers and duties of each branch of government. 

Moreover, the possibilities for cooperation between the community, acting 
through government, and the citizens, young and old, acting singly or in 
voluntary associations, is never lost sight of. How great is this departure from 
the solemn farce of practically memorizing the Federal Constitution — now in 
vogue in the city of Penn and elsewhere — can best be appreciated by those 
teachers who are anxiously awaiting deliverance from bondage through long- 
overdue revision of their prescribed course of study. 

While we are waiting for elementary schools to introduce a course 
such as Dr. Barnard has outlined, it is recommended that high schools 
undertake this work in a form adapted to their pupils. It is prob- 
able, however, that a brief review of community civics and further 
attention to a survey of vocations will be a valuable introduction to 
high-school education even though the pupils have had the ele- 
mentary course in the grades. 



V 



COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 21 

The subject matter of community civics will vary with the com- 
munity in which the school is located. Communities differ almost as 
much as individuals. There are the large cities, the villages, and the 
open country. They differ also as to the characteristics and occupa- 
tions of the people. It is the hope of the committee to prepare 
outlines for each of the main types of communities, certainly for rural 
and urban. The topics given below are merely suggestive. 

An explanation of the value of " community health " as one of the 
topics for this introductory course will make clear the various ele- 
ments to be considered in selecting topics. The value of a topic for 
this course depends upon its intrinsic importance to the pupil as a 
citizen or potential citizen; upon the possibility of presenting it to 
the boy or girl mind; upon the attitude of the community toward 
the subject, such as sensitiveness to the discussion of unfavorable con- 
ditions; and upon its relation to other studies. There is probably no 
subject which so well meets all of these requirements as community 
health. Certainly there is no other topic of more immediate interest 
to everyone. Health can be made so concrete that even a child can 
understand much about it. While the community may be sensitive 
about certain conditions, it is possible to present the facts so definitely 
as not to injure the teacher's influence. Community health and civic 
biology when taught in the same school seem to overlap, and yet with 
the cooperation of the teachers one course should help the other. Civic 
biology goes to the health department and observes the microscopic 
analysis of sputum and the multiplication of bacteria in milk. Com- 
munity health considers the economic loss caused by deaths from 
impure milk. Civic biology explains what is meant by " death from 
preventable causes " ; community health shows the scandalous careless- 
ness of a social system that permits 650,000 deaths from preventable 
causes every year in the United States, and then points out civic 
remedies. 

Each of the following topics has been selected with due reference 
to the foregoing requirements. The logical and complete presenta- 
tion of civics must wait until a later period in the education of the 
pupil. In this earlier period the immediate needs of the pupil receive 
special consideration : 

1. Community health. 

2. Public recreation. 

3. Public utilities, such as roads, street cars, water, gas, and electricity. 

4. Family income. 

5. Savings banks and life insurance. 

6. Poverty, its prevention, and the care of the poor. 

7. Crime and reform ; juvenile courts. 

8. Classification of population with reference to age, sex, occupation, and 
nationality. 

9. Urban life. 



' 



22 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

10. Rural life. 

11. Conservation of the soil and of other natural resources. 

12. Human rights versus property rights. 

13. Impulsive action of mobs and selfish conservatism of tradition. 

14. Social phases of education and the larger use of the schoolhouse. 

15. Government machinery. 

SURVEY OF VOCATIONS. 

The second part of the first unit is a survey of vocations. The 
following statement, prepared by Mr. William A. Wheatley, a mem- 
ber of this committee, describes his experience with such a course 
under his supervision : 

While the English, biology, and possibly physiography can and should con- 
tribute to a knowledge of vocations, a survey can be adequately accomplished 
only by making it a distinct subject. 

In the half-year course in vocations in the Middletown (Conn.) High School 
there are studied by the boys 50 of the common vocations, including professions, 
trades, and other life occupations. A similar course, but somewhat briefer, 
is being organized for the girls. 

In studying each of the vocations we touch upon its healthfulness, remunera- 
tion, value to society, and social standing, as well as upon natural qualifica- 
tions, general education, and special preparation necessary for success. Nat- 
urally we investigate at first hand as many as possible of the vocations found 
in our city and vicinity. We have each pupil bring from home first-hand 
and, as far as practicable, "inside" facts concerning his father's occupation. 
We also invite local professional men. engineers, business men. manufacturers, 
mechanics, and agriculturists to present informally and quite personally the 
salient features of their various vocations. However, strange as it has seemed 
to us, these experts, not being teachers, often miss the mark completely and 
present phases of their work of little interest or value to the pupils, although 
each speaker has had explained to him carefully beforehand the purpose of 
the course in vocations and specifically just what is desired in his particular 
address. 

We have found the following works of most value in our work : " What 
Shall Our Boys Do for a Living?" by Chas. F. Wingate; Doubleday, Page 
& Co.; "Careers for the Coming Men," a collection of articles, the Sallsfleld 
Publishing Co.; "What Shall I Do?" by J. S. Stoddard; Hinds, Noble & 
Eldridge; and the general catalogue of the International Correspondence 
Schools, of Scranton, Pa. 

We are confident that this course, besides being intrinsically interesting to 
the pupils, actually gives them greater respect for all kinds of honorable work, 
helps them later to choose more wisely their life work, convinces them of the 
absolute necessity for a thorough preparation before entering any vocation, 
and holds to the end of the high school many who otherwise would have 
dropped out early in the race. These results have actually been realized in 
our practice. Should we then apologize when we ask that this branch be 
given as much time as commercial arithmetic or commercial geography, or 
one-half the time given to algebra, or one-sixth the time given to German or 
French, or finally one-eighth the time given to a course in Latin? ' A place for 
it must be found in all our high schools, which are the people's elementary 
colleges. 



COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 23 

HISTORY. 

The committee is now prepared to submit only two provisional 
suggestions on history, namely, first, the conception of history ac- 
cording to which pupils should be instructed; and second, the di- 
vision of the field of history into three unit courses. This conception 
of history is so well stated by Prof. James Harvey Robinson, a mem- 
ber of this committee, that we quote from his article in the Proceed- 
ings of the American Philosophical Society, May-June, 1911. 

The older traditional type of historical writing was narrative in character. 
Its chief aim was to tell a tale or story by setting forth a succession of events 
and introducing the prominent actors who participated in them. It was a 
branch of polite literature, competing with the drama and fiction, from which, 
indeed, it differed often only in the limitations which the writer was sup- 
posed to place upon his fancy. 

In order to appreciate the arbitrary nature of the selection of historic facts 
offered in these standard textbooks and treatises, let us suppose that a half 
dozen alert and well-trained minds had never happened to be biased by the 
study of any outline of history and had, by some happy and incredible fortune, 
never perused a " standard " historical work. Let us suppose that they had 
nevertheless learned a good deal about the past of mankind directly from the 
vast range of sources that we now possess, both literary and archaeological. 
Lastly, let us assume that they were all called upon to prepare independently 
a so-called general history, suitable for use in the higher schools. They would 
speedily discover that there was no single obvious rule for determining what 
should be included in their review of the past. Having no tradition to guide 
them, each would select what he deemed most important for the young to 
know of the past. Writing in the twentieth century, they would all be deeply 
influenced by the interests and problems of the day. Battles and sieges and 
the courts of kings would scarcely appeal to them. Probably it would occur 
to none of them to mention the battle of Issus, the Samnite wars, the siege of 
Numantia by the Romans, the advent of Hadrian, the Italian enterprises of 
Otto I, the six wives of Henry VIII, or the invasion of Holland by Louis XIV. 
It is tolerably safe to assume that none of these events, which are recorded 
in practically all of our manuals to-day, would be considered by any one of 
our writers as he thought over all that men had done, and thought, and suf- 
fered, and dreamed through thousands of years. All of them would agree that 
what men had known of the world in which they lived, or had thought to be 
their duty, or what they made with their hands, or the nature and style of 
their buildings, public and private, would any of them be far more valuable 
to rehearse than the names of their rulers and the conflicts in which they 
engaged. Each writer would accordingly go his own way. He would look 
back on the past for explanations of what he found most interesting in the 
present and would endeavor to place his readers in a position to participate 
intelligently in the life of their own time. The six manuals, when completed, 
would not only differ greatly from one another, but would have little resem- 
blance to the fable convenue which is currently accepted as embodying the 
elements of history. 

Obviously history must be rewritten, or, rather, innumerable current issues 
must be given their neglected historic background. Our present so-called his- 
tories do not ordinarily answer the questions we would naturally and insistently 



24 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

put to them. When we contemplate the strong demand that women are making 
for the right to vote we ask ourselves, " How did the men win the vote? " The 
historians we consult have scarcely asked themselves that question, and so do 
not answer it. We ask, "How did our courts come to control legislation in the 
exceptional and extraordinary manner they do? " We look in vain in most his- 
tories for a reply. No one questions the inalienable right of the historian to 
interest himself in any phase of the past that he chooses. It is only to be 
wished that a greater number of historians had greater skill in hitting upon 
those phases of the past which serve us best in understanding the most vital 
problems of the present. 

The three unit courses in history that the committee intends to out- 
line are as follows: 

(1) European history to 1600 or 1700 (including English history 
and colonial American history). 

(2) European history since 1600 or 1700 (including contemporary 
civilizations). 

(3) United States history since 1760 (including current events). 
The best method of abbreviating the work in history to two units, 

when such abbreviation is necessary, is still an open question. 

The plan of the committee is to refer each period to some historian 
who has given evidence of " skill in hitting upon those phases of the 
past which serve us best in understanding the most vital problems of 
the present,'' with the request that he give us a statement of such 
phases as are useful to the high-school boy and girl. This material 
will then be assembled, reviewed, and referred to high-school teachers 
of history for trial. 

ECONOMICS. 
[Statement prepared by Dr. Henry R. Burch, a member of this committee.] 

The study of that part of economics usually referred to as produc- 
tion and consumption should constitute the major part of the course 
in economics for high-school students. "While the subjects of ex- 
change, distribution, and economic programs should each be given 
proper emphasis, it is clear that, because of its essentially concrete 
and objective character, the study of production and consumption 
forms the natural basis of an introductory course in economics. It 
is equally obvious that distribution, because so theoretical and ab- 
stract, is the most difficult phase of economics for high-school students 
to grasp. 

The concepts of land, labor, and capital should be vitalized by 
constant reference to the part they play in national life. Under 
" land " should be treated such topics as the agricultural, mineral, 
and water resources of the United States, wdiile proper references 
should be made at appropriate points to the problems of conserva- 
tion, irrigation, and reclamation. Similarly, under " labor," such 
concrete topics as immigration, child labor, women workers, and 



1 



t 



COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 25 

industrial risks and accidents should be treated. Under " capital " 
should be included, in addition to the necessary theoretical discussion 
on the subject, related concrete problems regarding banks, corpora- 
tions, trusts, and the effects of increased capital on social happiness. 

This study of land, labor, and capital should be followed by an 
analysis of the productive system of the United States. Here we may 
trace the development of American civilization along agricultural, 
industrial, and commercial lines. The present status of American 
agriculture, with its remarkable possibilities for future development 
through soil conservation and agricultural science, should be grasped 
by the pupil. The great industrial structure that has been built up 
by means of inventions, large-scale production, trust organization, 
and labor cooperation should be outlined. Finally, the pupil should 
be led to appreciate the wonderful advance in transportation facil- 
ities and the attempts to keep the activities of corporations within 
the control of the Government. 

Concrete economic problems should be taken up wherever possible 
in connection with that factor of production to which it is most 
closely related. A subject like trusts, for example, may be treated 
under the caption of "business organization." The development of 
the trust from the early forms of business organization through the 
corporation to the holding company may be described and followed 
by a more careful study of the details of trust organization. Its 
advantages and disadvantages may be pointed out and the efforts of 
the Government to regulate its activities described. If time permits 
(as in a commercial course, where a year instead of a term is often 
devoted to the study of economics), the problem may be studied more 
thoroughly by investigating the actual workings of some well-known 
organization, such as the United States Steel Corporation or the 
Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. 

In presenting other phases of economics, the same general treat- 
ment should be observed. Every effort should be made to have the 
pupil realize the importance of investigation and comprehension of 
the industrial world of which he is a part. For example, under 
" exchange," it is not so important that the high-school pupil under- 
stand the laws of value and price as that he shall know the effect 
of monopoly on price, the actual functions of money and credit, or 
the operations of the modern promoter and financier. 

In discussing the distribution of wealth, theory necessarily plays 
an important part. Even here, however, theories may be made real. 
Constant applications of the theories of rent, interest, profit, and 
wages are essential to their comprehension by the pupil of hiofh- 
school age. Diagrams and illustrations from everyday life should be 
employed. The statement of those theories should be so simple and 



26 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

their application so frequent as to dispel the atmosphere of mere 
theory. 

In concluding a study of elementary economics, the pupil should 
be acquainted with some of the more important programs of eco- 
nomic reform at present engaging the attention of social workers. 
The student should, at the end of the course, be in a position to see 
just what social workers, single taxers, socialists, organized-labor ad- 
vocates, and government-regulation enthusiasts are trying to accom- 
plish. The ideal of individual and social welfare will in this manner 
be impressed upon his mind and serve as an inspiration for his life 
work. 

CIVIC THEORY AND PRACTICE. 

In comparison with community civics, this course stresses the for- 
mal elements of civic thought. One of the main purposes here is to 
help the pupil determine the mutual relation of the forces and events 
which he has been observing and studying throughout his school 
days. Such works as Wilson's " State," Bryce's "American Common- 
wealth," and Beard's "American Government and Politics " will give 
the pupil a deeper insight into the social actions of mankind. A few 
titles from two of these books indicate the type of knowledge that 
should be obtained by the pupil : 

Wilson's "State." Chapter I. Early forms of government; government 
rested first on kinship; early history of the family; kinship and religion; reign 
of custom ; competition of customs ; individual iniative and imitation. Chapter 
XIII. The nature and forms of government; government rests on authority and 
force; true nature of government; new character of society. Chapter XIV. 
Law; its nature and development. Chapter XVI. The objects of government; 
society greater than government; the state and education. 

Bryce's "American Commonwealth." Chapter 4. Nature of the Federal Gov- 
ernment; the House at work. Chapter 5. The committees of the House. Chap- 
ter 9. General observations on Congress. Chapter 29. Direct legislation by the 
people. Chapter 39. The working of city government. Chapter 54. Composition 
of political parties; appendix, the lobby. Chapter 62. How the machine works. 
Chapter 68. The war against bossdom. Chapter 74. Types of American states- 
men. Chapter 78. How public opinion rules. Chapter 84. The tyranny of the ma- 
jority. Chapter 97. Woman suffrage. Chapters 9S-99. The fault and strength 
of American democracy. 

Frequent use will be made of well-written reports published by 
public and private organizations on such topics as sanitation, hous- 
ing, pure food, child labor, recreation, and social education. Em- 
phasis on the formal study must not be permitted to crowd out the 
observation of actual conditions nor such experience in social service 
as the time will permit. 

The following tentative outline is offered only as indicating the 
points of emphasis. It is given also in response to demands for 






COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL STUDIES. 27 

immediate aid by teachers who desire to reorganize their work in 
civics. 

I. Government and public welfare. 

Fully two-thirds of the time should be devoted to this topic. Here 
the pupil studies those activities of the Government which influence 
his life more frequently than those ordinarily classified under the 
next topic — Government machinery. Here he learns how broad is 
the work of the Government and how intimately it influences the life 
of the individual. The real meaning of government dawns upon the 
pupil when he learns of the roads, of the weather, of mineral re- 
sources, of labor and commercial conditions, and of many other 
things too numerous to mention. Nongovernmental organizations 
engaged in work for social improvement should be discussed in con- 
nection with the governmental functions to which their efforts are 
most closely related. 

The following topics are suggested: (1) Health and sanitation: 
Housing, pure food and milk, sewerage, waste disposal, contagious 
diseases, statistics, medical inspection of school children, health 
crusades. (2) Education. (3) Recreation. (4) Charities. (5) Cor- 
rection, juvenile courts, reform schools, etc. (6) Public utilities: 
Transportation, light, telephone, telegraph, postal system, water, etc. 
(T) City planning: Sanitation and beauty. 

II. Government machinery. 

Local, State, National; legislative, executive, judicial; courts and 
legal processes; election and political activities, including such topics 
as initiative and referendum. 

III. The development of government. 

Social psychology, democracy, the family, and other social organi- 
zations. 

Thomas Jesse Jones, 

Chairman. 
United States Bureau of Education, 

Washington, D. G. 

The other members of the committee on social studies are as 
follows : 

William Anthony Aery, secretary of the committee, Hampton, Va. 
J. Lynn Barnard, School of Pedagogy, Philadelphia, Pa. 
H. M. Barrett, principal East High School, Denver, Colo. 
F. L. Boyden, principal of academy, Deerfield, Mass. 

E. C. Branson, State normal school, Athens, Ga. 

Henry R. Burch, Manual Training High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Alexander E. Cance, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass. 
Miss Jessie C. Evans, William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 

F. P. Goodwin, Woodward High School, Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Miss Blanche Hazard, High School of Practical Arts, Boston, Mass. 
S. B. Howe, high school, Plainfield. N. J. 



28 REORGANIZATION OP SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

J. Herbert Low, Manual Training High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
W. H. Mace, Syracuse University, Syracuse, N. Y. 
William T. Morrey, Bushwick High School, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
John Pettibone, principal of high school, New Milford, Conn. 
James Harvey Robinson, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. 
W. A. Wheatley, superintendent of schools, Middletown, Conn. 






STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
NATURAL SCIENCE. 

THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE COMMITTEE. 

Existing conditions in the teaching of science in secondary schools 
appear to be favorable for the work of the committee on natural 
science. Notable progress has been made in determining the sciences 
which should find place in the program of the high school. Adequate 
standards of scope and of thoroughness have been established. 
Progress has been made in the methods and in providing equipment 
and teaching force. With the recognition of the sciences as essential 
parts of the high-school program have come ample equipment and 
adequate teaching force. No high school to-day is considered worthy 
the name unless it has laboratory facilities. From this vantage 
ground teachers of science in secondary schools are in a position to 
study their opportunities and to outline programs for realizing them. 

Certain defects of science courses in content and in methods are 
becoming increasingly apparent. In some respects science teaching 
is not as closely related to the environment and experience of the 
pupil to-day as it was a quarter century ago. With the elaboration 
of apparatus and the increased attention to quantitative methods 
there has come an aloofness from the experience of everyday life, so 
that the pupil may secure a high standing in physics, chemistry, or 
biology without necessarily gaining an understanding of their appli- 
cations. Moreover, teachers in science in some instances over- 
emphasize the importance of formal and fixed procedure and, as a 
result, are not alert to utilize new opportunities. 

The failure to adapt science instruction to the real needs of boys 
and girls has resulted in lack of interest on the part of the pupils 
and, in many schools, altogether too small a percentage of the pupils 
elect science courses. It is obvious that science teaching will profit 
greatly when the experience of instructors in many high schools be- 
comes common property. Interesting and fruitful experiments are 
being conducted, the results of which are full of suggestion, and one 
function of this committee is to present a statement of such experi- 
ments. 



COMMITTEE ON NATURAL SCIENCE. 29 

THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMITTEE. 

In organizing this committee it seemed desirable to recognize the 
following courses in science and to assign the consideration of each 
of these to a special committee: (1) Introductory or first-year science. 
This is also known as general or elementary science. (2) Physics. 
(3) Chemistry. (4) Geography. (5) Biology, including botany, 
zoology, and physiology. 

The following persons have agreed to act as chairmen : Introduc- 
tory science — Prof. J. F. Woodhull, Teachers' College, Columbia Uni- 
versity, New York. Physics — Prof. C. P. Mann, University of Chi- 
cago, Chicago, 111. Chemistry — Prof. C. R. Elliot, Normal School, 
Carbondale, 111. Geography — Prof. Richard E. Dodge, Teachers' 
College, New York. Biology — James E. Peabody, Morris High 
School, New York City. 

Some doubt exists as to whether the committee on science should 
include within its study the application of science in such practical 
arts as agriculture and household arts. Possibly this field of science 
instruction in the high school may be considered by the committees 
charged with reporting on these two subjects. 

THE PLAN OF WORK. 

At the meeting of the committee held in Philadelphia on March 1, 
1913, the following plan was adopted : 

Each committee is, in the first instance, to define the aims of its 
particular science as a high-school study. These aims are to be stated 
primarily in terms of what each individual pupil should secure in 
appreciation and in power, and secondarily in terms of knowledge 
and information. 

It is of the utmost importance that the pupil should gain power 
to apply the facts and principles of science and to interpret natural 
phenomena. For this reason the teacher of science should draw 
largely from material found in the environment and should by no 
means confine attention to the statements in the textbook or to the 
laboratory exercises. The work in science should be so organized as 
to lead the pupil to acquire skill in manipulating apparatus and in 
dealing intelligently with facts and phenomena. 

As one result of the high-school work in any science, the pupil 
should increase his store of general information and become inter- 
ested in reading books on science and in studying phenomena and 
almost instinctively approach the facts of nature and of industry from 
the scientific standpoint. It is obvious that in organizing science 
courses careful attention must be paid to the maturity of the pupil. 
Work that appeals to the boy or girl of 13 or 14 is not of a nature 
likely to interest a pupil in the upper classes of the high school, and 
the converse is equally true. 






I 



30 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

In addition to the results of science teaching upon the development 
of the individual, the committee should consider in what ways science 
instruction may contribute to the well-being and progress of the com- 
munity. By selecting material for study from the industries of the 
town or city and by acquainting the pupil with local application of 
physics, chemistry, and biology the science teacher can develop inter- 
est in and promote intelligence regarding community activities. A 
pupil thus trained should be a better citizen because his habit of 
mind will lead him to apply the criteria of science to community 
affairs. 

When each committee has determined the aims of science teaching 
in terms of the gain to the individual pupil and of community prog- 
ress and welfare, then it should next select the material to be util- 
ized. Each committee should determine what facts and general- 
izations should be memorized by every pupil. Each committee 
should also indicate main lines of general reading and of observa- 
tion, so that the pupil shall be informed in a large way on the 
scope of any given science and shall show an intelligent interest in 
current reading relating to science, particularly in its applications 
to industry and community welfare, including the safeguarding of 
public health. 

Inasmuch as a most valuable part of science work consists in ex- 
periments and exercises conducted by the pupil, each committee 
should prepare a list of projects and exercises. Such projects and 
exercises may be classified in two divisions : 

(1) Those so essential to an understanding and comprehension of 
the science that they should be performed by every pupil in the class. 

(2) Those that may properly be performed by individual pupils 
by reason of personal aptitude and special interests. 

The distinction between project and exercise may be stated as 
follows: An exercise is a piece of work done in the laboratory, while 
a project is the study of some phenomenon or contrivance outside the 
classroom and where the pupil, as a rule, in connection with this 
study constructs some useful device. In addition to projects and 
exercises set by the teacher, pupils should be asked to bring to class 
problems gathered from their own experience. All work in every 
science should be closely related to the experience of the pupil. 

Each committee should further keep in mind both the limitations 
and the special opportunities of the small high school. The work in 
the high school may review, but should not duplicate, that done in 
the elementary school. Each committee should also prepare lists of 
reference books and other lines of reading to be used in high schools. 

Inasmuch as the aims of science teaching are to be stated in the 
first place in terms of the growth of the pupil in power and in ap- 
preciation, correct methods are of vital importance. It is much 



COMMITTEE ON NATURAL SCIENCE. 31 

easier to assign lessons from a text or to follow a prescribed program 
of laboratory exercises than to constantly and continually adapt and 
apply both material and methods to the real needs of pupils and to 
utilize illustrations found in the environment. The methods should 
be described with sufficient definition and in such detail as to aid a 
comparatively inexperienced teacher, while at the same time the 
teacher should be encouraged to think for himself and to initiate 
methods of his own. When one breaks away from a textbook or 
from a definite list of laboratory exercises there is danger that the 
instruction may fail in thoroughness, with resultant lack of respect 
and regard by pupils for the subject. It is probable that each com- 
mittee will find it desirable to outline a number of model lessons, 
each illustrating some method. These model lessons may well illus- 
trate how each of the various aims of science instruction may be 
attained. 

The consensus of opinion of the committee at the conference in 
Philadelphia was that a survey should be made of existing condi- 
tions and practices. Apart from the value of the information thus 
secured the committee will at the outset come into cooperative rela- 
tions with science teachers throughout the country. Continued prog- 
ress in teaching science in our high schools is to be determined very 
largely by the extent to which teachers in this subject cooperate, in 
order that conclusions gained as the result of experience and experi- 
ment may become known to all. 

The committee can also be a means of communication between high- 
school teachers in science and those who are engaged in the practice 
of training such teachers. Departments of education in colleges may 
be informed on the aims and methods of science teaching and thus 
be enabled to adapt their courses to the real needs of the high schools 
in their field. By this service the committee can indirectly exer- 
cise a most effective influence in advancing the standards of science 
instruction. 

Tentative conclusions should be submitted to the actual test of 
schoolroom conditions; here, again, an opportunity for cooperation 
on a large scale will be afforded. As a corollary to this statement it 
may be said that the work of this committee will not be completed 
for several years ; in fact, it will probably be desirable that, when a 
given membership of the committee has achieved certain results, the 
personnel should change in order that those who are qualified to 
proceed with other phases of the work may be called into service. 

William Orr, Chairman. 

Ford Building, Boston. 

The organization of the committee on natural sciences is not yet 
completed. 



32 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 

THE STATUS OF LATIN IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS QUESTIONS, CRITICISMS, 

SUGGESTIONS. 

The committee on ancient languages has proposed for answer, 
or at least for discussion, such questions as these: What is the present 
status of Latin in the public high schools? In the private schools? 
Is Latin losing ground, gaining, or merely holding its own? If it is 
losing ground, what are the principal causes of the decline? If 
there has been a falling off in the relative number of pupils studying 
Latin, are the causes to be found in the intrinsic difficulty of the 
subject, unwise choice of materials, ill-adapted pupils, faulty methods, 
poorly prepared teachers, crowded curricula, rivalry of modern 
foreign languages and of the so-called practical subjects, changing 
college-entrance requirements, narrow or mistaken aims of Latin 
teachers, changing estimate of educational values, social and economic 
conditions? If these are the main causes of the decline, are there 
effective remedies available? If so, what are the remedies? Shall we 
encourage the great mass of those entering high school to begin 
Latin, or shall we advocate the policy of limiting the numbers to the 
ablest pupils? If either plan is adopted, are our present courses, 
subject matter, and methods best adapted to make the subject attrac- 
tive and useful to the children who take it? Facts, suggestions, per- 
sonal experiences, constructive and destructive criticism will be 
welcomed. 

We of the committee believe that Latin is not only one of the most 
effective educational instruments for general culture, but that it is 
as well one of the most practical subjects in the curricula of secondary 
schools. We believe that this assertion is capable of convincing 
proof. Much work has already been done to demonstrate the value of 
Latin. There is much more yet to be done. For example, we Latin 
teachers claim, and for good reasons, that our pupils gain excellent 
training in English from their Latin studies. Why not attempt to 
prove this by finding out some of the actual facts? A comparison of 
the English records of a few thousand Latin pupils with similar 
records of non-Latin pupils of the same grade for a period of three 
or four years would establish, at least in some measure, the truth or 
falsity of our claim. Investigations along similar lines might show 
what relation the study of Latin bears to success in other subjects. 

In various schools throughout the country experiments are con- 
stantly made, both in subject matter and in method. The committee 
invites all innovators, experimenters, and pioneers to make reports of 
successes and of failures. Some are trying the direct method; some 



COMMITTEE ON ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 38 

are using the spoken language, wholly or in part, in recitations; 
some have discovered various ingenious devices for arousing and 
maintaining interest and for securing greater efficiency. Others 
have experimented with new materials and with new uses of old 
materials. Closer correlation with English and other subjects is 
on trial. The so-called practical phases are receiving attention. 
The committee would like to know what has been done and is at- 
tempted. 

Mr. A. I. Dotey, of the De Witt Clinton High School, New York 
City, recently made a comparative study of the scholarship records 
of 1,397 pupils for the first six months in high school. Approxi- 
mately one-third of these pupils began with Latin, one-third with 
German, and one-third with French. The purpose of the study 
was to determine the place in scholarship held by each foreign lan- 
guage group. A detailed study revealed many important facts, all 
of which, if generally known, should encourage teachers of Latin. 
Only one of the broad generalizations need be mentioned : The Latin 
group holds first place in scholarship in every subject. 

The writer made a similar study of two groups of pupils, of about 
200 in each group. The first group elected Latin on entering high 
school; the second group, German. A comparison was made of suc- 
cess in English. The comparison was carried through three years — ■ 
six terms. The Latin group was slightly more successful in English 
the first term, but the difference was not great enough to excite com- 
ment. In every succeeding term, however, the Latin group increased 
its lead over the German group, until in the sixth term the results 
in English averaged 20 per cent higher for the Latin group than for 
the German. Are such results typical? If they are, Latin teachers 
need have no hesitation in claiming that their subject is intensely 
practical. In the Stuyvesant High School, New York City, until 
matters of organization made it impracticable, the Latin boys did as 
much work in German, for example, in three years as the non-Latin 
pupils did in four, and often did the work better. 

During the seven or eight months since its organization, the com- 
mittee on ancient languages has held one meeting at Philadelphia. 
The chairman was present also at a preliminary general meeting in 
December. With a membership widely scattered, it has not been 
easy to get the views of the different members on any subject. The 
Philadelphia meeting helped to a somewhat better understanding 
of the aims and purposes of the committee. The urgent need of 
work along broad constructive lines was generally admitted. The 
same spirit of conservatism which for years has characterized the 
teaching of the classics still prevails even among members of the 
committee. This conservative spirit is proper and desirable. The 
10602°— 13 -3 









1 



34 REORGANIZATION OP SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

more radical members may need some check. They should be com- 
pelled to sustain the burden of proof when vital changes are pro- 
posed. That the time is ripe for a reformation, if not for a revolu- 
tion, few deny. The responsibility rests with the Latin teachers, 
whether it be a reformation or a revolution. 

Thoughtful teachers of the classics are beginning to suspect that 
some of the attacks directed against Latin are merited. But many 
teachers do not appear to see the threatening signs of the times. Some 
are indifferent through ignorance of the facts or through overconfi- 
dence. Perhaps they feel that the place of Latin in our scheme of 
education is so secure that there is no real cause for fear. To the 
committee this laissez faire attitude seems indefensible. 

There are large numbers of teachers, classical and others, who 
deeply deplore the present-day attitude toward the classics and fear 
for their future in our educational system. Profound changes are 
taking place in our civic, social, industrial, and religious life. Our 
whole scheme of education, from primary school through university, 
is feeling the effects of these changes. The subjects and methods 
which were regarded most highly yesterday are discredited to-day, 
and the end is not yet. 

The high schools have been slow to react to the stimulus of the 
times. The colleges are responsible in no small measure for this con- 
dition. The high school is not yet free from traditionalism and from 
the domination of college and university. The rigid entrance re- 
quirements still tend to cripple and limit the effectiveness of the high 
schools. In comparatively recent years colleges have developed the 
elective systems, so far as their own courses are concerned, but they 
have on the whole been slow to extend that policy to entrance require- 
ments. But conditions are rapidly changing. The day is coming and 
is almost here when it will be generally recognized that the chief 
business of a public high school is to fit for life. The college in turn 
will recognize that this preparation for life is also the best prepara- 
tion for college. The high schools belong to all the people and must 
serve the children of all the people. Whatever any considerable num- 
ber of the people wish to have taught must be taught. If there is not 
a considerable number of people that wish their children to study a 
subject, very soon that subject will cease to be taught in our public 
high schools. In these democratic institutions every subject must 
stand or fall on its merits. 

The fate of Latin lies in our own hands. Do we believe in the 
subject we teach? Do we believe that it deserves a place, and an 
important place, in our high schools? Latin lacks the novelty of 
some of the latest offerings. But time perfects and enriches some 
things. It should bring no discredit to the study of Latin that it 
has stood the schoolroom test of some 20 centuries. In the high- 



/ 



COMMITTEE ON ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 35 

school course of the future what place will Latin take? What are 
the aims of Latin teaching? We Latin teachers must work out the 
correct answers to these questions, or others less qualified to decide 
will answer them for us in a way distasteful to us and injurious to 
the cause of sound education. 

We have just asked ourselves, What are the aims of Latin teach- 
ing? The following are some of the aims which seem worth while: 
To enrich the English vocabulary, both by the addition of new words 
and particularly by a more perfect mastery and clear understanding 
of many of the words already in use; to develop an appreciation of 
word, phrase, and clause relations; to teach clearness and accuracy 
of expression, both oral and written; to develop habits of industry 
and application ; to make the pupil an intelligent critic of his own 
oral and written speech and that of others ; to lay a good foundation 
for the study of English and of other modern languages; to read 
some of the great Latin masterpieces ; " to give a wider view of life 
through familiarity with a great civilization remote from the pres- 
ent, both in place and time, ' in the cool, calm air of noncontempora- 
neous events.' " 

Many of the results of the successful teaching of Latin just men- 
tioned are, so to speak, by-products. It is worthy of remark that 
these so-called by-products of the study of Latin — the illumination 
of an English word, of a grammatical principle, or of a fundamental 
law of language, the causal remark that throws a suggestive side light 
upon some vital fact of history, of law, of religious and social custom, 
and upon civilization in general — are the things which cling in the 
memory long after one has lost the ability to translate a passage from 
Cicero or correctly to classify a subjunctive or an ablative. 

Few who are really competent to form intelligent judgments with 
reference to the matter would attempt to refute the claim so generally 
put forward by teachers of Latin, viz, that Latin offers the most 
effective way of teaching the fundamentals of English grammar or 
of the grammar of most other modern European languages. Formal 
grammar is, to the majority of pupils, a distasteful if not a profitless 
study. The results obtained are by no means commensurate with the 
time and effort spent. Modern educational theory and practice tend 
more and more to subordinate this study in our high schools. Most 
English teachers whose opinions the writer has asked declare that 
the difficulties of English grammar are much lessened, if they do 
not entirely disappear in the case of pupils who study Latin. In 
these days of crowded cirricula children who are studying Latin 
should be excused from formal English grammar and from formal 
study in their English classes of formation and derivation of English 
words. 



36 REORGANIZATION" OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

It is one of the traditions of classical study that translation from 
Latin and Greek is a most valuable training in English expression. 
So far as the earlier years of secondary teaching are concerned, it is 
scarcely more than a tradition. It is not fair, however, to lay all or 
even a large fraction of the blame at the door of the teacher. Under 
the conditions which ordinarily prevail there is small opportunity 
for such training in the first year. Isolated words, phrases, and 
short, detached sentences which have practically no bearing on the 
interests of boys and girls or on the interests of anybody else afford 
very narrow scope for training in vigor and clearness of expression. 
In the second year the difficulties have been multiplied, for an author 
is read whose works contain all sorts of linguistic snares for the un- 
wary. In order to translate into clear and idiomatic English, one 
must combine in himself the rare qualities of an accomplished Latin 
scholar with the powers of expression of a master of English. 

The first, as well as the second year's work, is dull and difficult be- 
cause we insist upon reading Caesar in the second year. Elaborate 
analyses are made of the vocabulary and syntax of Caesar, and prac- 
tically all beginning books are crammed with these " essentials." The 
work of the first year is planned, not with reference to the capacities 
and interests of children, but with reference to the vocabulary and 
syntax of Caesar. If the children succeed by heroic efforts in 
thoroughly mastering a " first year book," which, the editor declares, 
" fits for Caesar," they are destined to disappointment. Early in the 
second year they find that they are not fitted to read Caesar. Even 
if pupils were able able to read the Gallic War with some degree of 
ease, it would be a pity to keep boys and girls of 13 and 14 plodding 
along on Caesar's Annals for a year. Even the most fascinating story 
would grow dull if we had to read 10 or 20 lines per day for 200 clays, 
and not everyone finds Caesar fascinating. If Latin literature, an- 
cient, mediaeval, and modern, has nothing more appropriate to offer 
our children for the second year than the Gallic War, some gifted 
lover of Latin and of children ought to write, or translate, stories 
which in content and difficulty shall appeal to the interests and fit 
the capacities of young people. Latin does not wholly lack such 
materials. 

The subjects for reading should be short and varied. Let us im- 
itate our confreres of the modern languages, who do not make their 
pupils read dry military and political histories the second year or 
any other year, but offer bright, entertaining, and varied selections 
which, while not too difficult, entertain and at the same time instruct. 
To students in the modern languages, grammar is the drudgery which 
is relieved by the reading of appropriate texts. To students of Latin, 
the grammar is no less difficult, but the selections for reading are so 



COMMITTEE ON" ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 37 

much harder than the grammar that the situation found in the 
modern languages is reversed. 

It is easier to point out defects than to propose effective remedies. 
The writer does not deceive himself by thinking that the suggestions 
he is about to make are original or altogether untested by actual ex- 
perience. If they merely point in the right direction or, failing in 
that, set others to thinking and working on the problem, the purpose 
of this paper will be realized. 

The writer is of the opinion that the reading of easy Latin should 
be begun immediately or after a very few introductory lessons. These 
introductory lessons should aim to supply the minimum of knowledge 
necessary to an understanding of the very simplest Latin with which 
the reading begins. From the outset an accurate knowledge of the 
inflectional forms used should be insisted upon. But these forms 
should not be learned in parrot fashion, quite apart from their uses. 
(Right here the direct method might be tried.) The formal par- 
adigms should follow, not precede, the actual use of the forms in 
translation. A large number of easy oral and, later, written exercises 
bearing upon and illuminating the story or fable which is read should 
fix these forms and the necessary syntax firmly in mind. Only so 
much syntax of moods and cases should be attempted as is absolutely 
necessary for proper understanding of the easy text read. Relatively 
few topics of syntax would be studied, emphasis being placed upon 
the mastery of the forms, the vocabulary, and the art of reading. 
Correct method of reading, as well as translating, should be insisted 
upon from the beginning. Words, forms, and principles of syntax 
should be learned, because needed and when needed in the reading of 
the text. 

It is a pedagogical blunder — fatal to the interest of success of all 
except the relatively few who have the type of mind that takes pleas- 
ure in handling, naming, and putting together the dry bones of the 
skeleton of a language — to attempt to teach grammatical forms and 
principles weeks and months before there will be any real occasion 
to use them. This method has been abandoned by progressive and 
successful teachers of modern languages, but the teachers of the 
classical languages, as a rule, still cling to the old, formal method 
which was unquestionably well adapted to the disciplinary theory of 
education which prevailed a quarter of a century ago. 

The text read, beginning with the simplest and easiest Latin, 
should, so far as possible, have an interesting and rich content. The 
fables and myths in the early period 'of study should be so selected 
that they would not only provide excellent training in reading Latin, 
but furnish as well a fund of legendary and mythological lore which 
would be of great value in the understanding and appreciation of 






38 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION". 

English literature. If properly taught, the interest in the reading 
matter would be so great and the relation of the grammatical work 
to that reading matter would be so direct and clear that an adequate 
motive for mastering the necessary technicalities of grammar would 
be supplied. 

Now, we may give in the first year that training in accuracy and 
clearness of expression with which we credit our subject. The trans- 
lation of the fables, myths, and the like furnishes unequalled oppor- 
tunities for such training. The teacher may use all his skill in en- 
couraging his pupils to turn the easy, fascinating stories into good 
English. These same miniature Latin classics may well suggest fruit- 
ful topics for oral class discussion. Under wise and enthusiastic 
direction the boys and girls will be encouraged to write paragraphs 
on themes suggested by the reading or to read in English additional 
myths and stories and to talk and write about them. 

Without taking issue for or against the so-called direct method 
of teaching Latin, the writer does not hesitate to affirm from his own 
experience that a five-minute class exercise in oral Latin in question 
and answer between teacher and pupils will put life and interest into 
the dullest recitation. A few minutes' conversation in Latin in easy 
sentences about some phase of the story which is being read will be 
invigorating to both pupils and teacher, and not beyond the abilities 
of anyone who has any right to teach the subject. There is no 
quicker way of impressing words and constructions upon pupils' 
minds. Such oral work, if done intelligently with a definite end in 
view, not merely stimulates interest, but gives to the pupils the feel- 
ing that they are gaining a real mastery over the language. 

The pupil should be encouraged to write short original para- 
graphs in Latin upon some topic about which he is reading. From 
time to time the teacher should prepare a short anecdote, repeat it 
in Latin to his class, discuss it both in Latin and in English until the 
content and vocabulary are familiar, and then request the class to 
write out and bring in their Latin versions of it for the next day. 
Some especially appropriate anecdotes or fables should be memorized 
by the pupils and then used as a basis for oral and written exercises. 
Pen-and-ink or pencil sketches to illustrate a striking character or in- 
cident in the story would give variety and interest to the work. 

English grammar should have some part in every lesson. Com- 
parisons and contrasts should constantly be made. The wise teacher 
will appeal to the pupils' knowledge of English to make clear some 
point in Latin, and will take advantage of every opportunity the 
Latin offers to emphasize or clarify the structure or idiom of the 
English. Whether these similarities and contrasts between the struc- 
ture of the two languages are consciously in the thoughts of pupil 
and teacher or not, every well-taught lesson in Latin is a lesson in 



COMMITTEE ON ANCIENT LANGUAGES. SO 

English grammar, a lesson also in the universal principles of 
grammatical relations which underlie most of the modern European 
languages. 

The writer of this paper would be the last person to advocate the 
policy of attempting to make Latin easy. He is well aware that if, 
in our desire to popularize the subject, we should devise a course that 
could be mastered without vigorous effort and continued application, 
the value of the subject as an effective instrument of education would 
be greatly reduced. But, on the other hand, there is also the clanger 
that we shall make the subject so difficult, as compared with other 
subjects in our secondary schools, that our prospective pupils, when 
they learn of the great " mortality " among those who take Latin, 
will hesitate to elect a subject in which the percentage of failure is 
so high. The writer does not hesitate to affirm his belief, which is 
based upon long experience, that in view of the extended range of 
secondary-school subjects "we Latinists are demanding more than 
our fair share of the pupils' time and effort. The result of the heavy 
demands is that fewer pupils are electing Latin, because they feel 
that such a choice will mean the sacrifice of other subjects of study 
which appear to them and their parents more essential than a " dead 
language." 

If Latin is to maintain the high place which it has occupied in our 
scheme of education for so many generations, the teaching of it must 
be more vital. In content, scope, and method our courses must be 
adapted to the ability and to the interests of the children. We have 
been too busy trying to fit the children to the subject, rather than 
the subject to the children. Speaking broadly, in shaping our 
courses in Latin in secondary schools, we have approached our prob- 
lems with college-entrance requirements and the interests of Latin 
chiefly in mind. Some of the tenderest-hearted of our guild have 
padded and smoothed the Procrustean bed a little here and there, 
but it is the same old bed upon which we force our victims to lie. If 
the subjects of our ministrations writhe and groan, we take their 
sufferings as evidence that our methods are effective, fortifying our- 
selves with the assurance that Latin is a " disciplinary " subject, and 
that " all chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous but 
grievous, yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that 
have been exercised thereby." We have set an arbitrary standard of 
attainment and have selected our subject matter with an almost 
incredible indifference to the psychology of adolescent girlhood and 
boyhood. 

It is the chairman's dearest hope that his committee, during the 
coming year, while considering the aims, course of study, and 
methods, may have 'an eye single to the highest interests of the child. 
In planning the work of the first two years, at least, one should but 






40 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

vaguely remember, if not entirely forget, that there are colleges and 
college-entrance requirements. All of us Latin teachers should con- 
stantly remind ourselves that, like the Sabbath, Latin was made for 
man, not man for Latin. 

In closing, the chairman wishes to accept full responsibility for 
the contents of this paper. While he is confident that a majority of 
his committee agree with him in general and in particular, it is only 
fair to state that there are some members who are not in full sym- 
pathy with some of the views herein expressed. 

Walter Eugene Foster, Chairman. 

Stuyvestant High School, 

New York City. 

The other members of the committee on ancient languages are as 
follows : 

Charles E. Bennett, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 

Mary L. Breene, Peabody High School, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Walter A. Edwards, Normal School, Los Angeles, Cal. 

Calvin Hanna, principal Oak Park High School, Chicago, 111. 

Nancy Hewitt, principal Albuquerque High School, Albuquerque, N. Mex. 

John C. Kirtland, Phillips-Exeter Academy, Exeter, N. H. 

Gonzalez Lodge. Teachers' College, New York, N. Y. 

David MacKenzie, principal Central High School, Detroit, Mich. 

William B. Owen, principal Chicago Teachers' College, Chicago, 111. 

Henry Carr Pearson, Horace Mann School, New York N. Y. 

J. F. Smith, superintendent of schools, Findlay, Ohio. 

F. W. Thomas, principal of high school, Santa Monica, Cal. 

Henry Daniel Wild, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
MODERN LANGUAGES. 

A preliminary draft has been submitted to the members of the com- 
mittee, and in general it has met with their approval. This state- 
ment has been made by the chairman with the help of suggestions 
made by mail by various members of the committee. There are 
undoubtedly many details in which different members of the com- 
mittee would suggest changes. 

abstract. 

Service to the pupil determines the aims of instruction. Work 
must at all times be of value both to those who are to leave the class 
and to those who will continue in it. The aims of the first year are 
phonetic training, knowledge of the fundamental principles of lan- 
guage, and interest in the foreign nation whose language is studied. 
Pupils with neither taste nor capacity for studying a foreign lan- 
guage should drop it after the first year. Oral work and accurate 



Committee o*r modern languages. 41 

pronunciation should from the beginning receive the most careful 
attention. The method used depends somewhat on the equipment of 
the teacher, but it should train ear, eye, tongue, and hand. 

The first texts should be of the simplest kind and should arouse an 
interest in the life of the foreign people. The work may include 
copying text, with minor variations of person, number, tense, etc.; 
writing from dictation; reading aloud; translation, oral and written, 
both from and into the foreign language; reproduction; paraphras- 
ing; imitative and free composition. Texts should be modern in 
style, not too long, distinctively national in character, adapted to the 
age, sex, and thought of the pupil, and they should give something 
worth remembering. Grammar should be the handmaid of the text, 
which should be the center of all instruction. In translation, thought 
should intervene between the two languages, being derived from the 
first and expressed by the second. 

In proportion to the time allowed, modern-language instruction in 
our best schools is as good as that abroad, but we need more good 
teachers and an opportunity for selected pupils to begin the study of 
a foreign language under competent instruction in the grades. The 
colleges should give especial attention to preparing teachers of 
modern languages, and the cities should grant Sabbatical years with 
half pay to teachers who will go to the expense of study abroad. 

I. AIMS. 

Service to the pupil is the great object of the work of this commit- 
tee. In accordance therewith, valid aims are defined as those which 
seek to meet the needs of real pupils as we actually find them, and 
a satisfactory method must give such pupils, in proper sequence 
and quantity, what they need to receive. We must so arrange the 
work that at every point it may be profitable for those taking it, 
giving to all a general appreciation of the subject, attaining for all 
who continue the language beyond the introductory stage satisfactory 
power in certain particulars, and securing a useful degree of skill 
for those by whom such skill may be needed. The first work should 
be so chosen that those who drop the subject early shall retain some- 
thing of value for themselves while impeding as little as possible the 
progress of others who are laying the foundation for future study, 
and a determining factor in deciding the order of procedure should 
be the principle that the work that makes for skill not generally 
needed and difficult of attainment should be reserved for later study 
and for especially gifted pupils. 

Certain features of modern language work may be eliminated at 
once from the list of reasonable aims for the pupil who expects to 
drop his language study early, either because he must leave school 



I 



42 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

or because his individual powers or lack of power make it advan- 
tageous for him to use his time in other ways. Such a pupil can 
expect neither to read nor to speak the language; a mere parrot-like 
knowledge that a German calls " die Tiir," and a Frenchman " la 
porte," a thing known to the pupil as " the door," is likely to be soon 
forgotten and to have no value either " practical " or educational. 
He can not hope to gain either skill or power in most phases of the 
subject, and for him we must choose work in which the field is so 
restricted that diligent study for even a short time may secure some 
satisfactory achievement and in which the training received will 
extend to other interests and develop the child along lines not 
directly connected with the language itself. Yet this work must also 
be profitable for those who expect to go further, and must therefore 
be a good foundation for future advanced work. 

Three aims of modern language instruction seem to meet perfectly 
these requirements, which at first appear so hard to reconcile. They 
are: 

(1) To secure a reasonable degree of phonetic accuracy and lead 
the pupil to feel its importance. 

For the child, speech has been a more or less unconscious process. 
With the study of a foreign language he should discover the necessity 
of making sounds and their formation the object of careful attention. 
He should gain thereby a conscious control of his speech organs; 
should develop his power to use them as he wills; should learn to 
feel the significance of sound distinctions, and to enunciate clearly 
whenever he speaks. The slovenly mumbling that so often passes 
for English speech sufficiently emphasizes the need of this. 

(2) To teach precision in the use of words and to give a clear un- 
derstanding of grammatical relations and of the common terms 
which state them, showing why such terms are necessary. 

The child's own language has been so much a part of his very 
being that it is extremely difficult for him to look upon it as a proper 
object of study. The normal child feels competent, without any 
rules, to speak in a perfectly satisfactory way. And if well born 
and reared he ought to be. To learn to employ the terms of grammar 
seems to him a most unnecessary and foolish thing. After reading 
or hearing that John struck James, he gains no further information 
by being told that John is the subject of the sentence; and he can 
not conceive of any human being so stupid that he must be told that 
John is the subject before knowing which boy struck the other. 
When he knows offhand how words go together, why should he 
learn strange, odd-sounding terms to explain relations which to him 
need no explanation? That is the puzzling mystery which very 
often befogs the boy who " can't understand grammar." He is con- 
fused by the attempt to explain to him by mysterious vocables what 



COMMITTEE ON MODEKN LANGUAGES. 43 

seems perfectly clear without any explanation. In the case of a 
foreign language the child comes easily -to see the need and the use 
of grammar, if from the beginning it is made what it should be, the 
handmaid of the text. 

Vagueness of the thought associated with a word is even more 
common than faulty enunciation. The study of the foreign language 
shows the importance of knowing the exact meaning of words and 
of using them with care. 

(3) To stimulate the pupil's interest in the foreign nation, leading 
him to perceive that the strange sounds are but new ways of commu- 
nicating thoughts quite like his own; showing him by the close 
resemblances in words and viewpoints that the German and the 
Frenchman are his kinsmen, with interests, ambitions, and hopes 
like his own ; revealing to him that their tales can give him pleasure, 
their wisdom can enlighten him. 

For every sort of pupil this work can be made profitable, and in 
most cases entertaining. Affording an excellent foundation for 
future study, it is valuable alike for the pupil who drops out early 
in the course and for him who is to make a specialty of language 
work. These aims, moreover, do not imply the completion of any 
definite amount of work before the child can profit by what he learns, 
nor do they require the application of any particular method. While 
keeping them constantly in mind, we may stress the substantive with 
the " natural " and the " picture and object " schools, or we may 
attack the verb first with the followers of Gouin and the " psycho- 
logical " method. The same ends may be sought with a class that 
can rapidly acquire a large vocabulary and attain a considerable 
command of inflectional forms and with a class of immature begin- 
ners whose progress must be slow. The closest application to these 
aims is compatible with a very great variety in details of method. 

The end of the first year should be marked by the elimination of 
those who are unprepared to continue modern language study in a 
somewhat serious and determined way. The most moderate achieve- 
ment in learning a foreign language implies persistent application 
to tasks not wholly pleasant, alertness of mind and retentiveness of 
memory, the building of a unified structure, each part of which must 
rest on previous work well done. In a modern language such achieve- 
ment must include at least the power to read an ordinary book 
rapidly, intelligently, and without too frequent recourse to the dic- 
tionary. Attainment short of this is practically useless, and the pupil 
who is not to reach this stage had better drop his French or German 
at the end of the first year and use his time for other things. In a 
well-rounded course satisfactory achievement should include also the 
ability to understand the foreign language when spoken distinctly 
and the ability to express simple thought orally or in writing. In 



I 



44 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

general, after the preliminary year, two years of further study will 
be needed for acceptable results. 

In his fourth year of study the high-school pupil is mature enough 
and should have had experience enough in dealing with abstract 
notions to profit by a somewhat careful consideration of the funda- 
mental principles of grammar and composition, as illustrated in both 
the foreign language and his own. Attention may be called to the 
literary quality of the texts read, and the development of an appre- 
ciation of good literature and of a taste therefor is a proper aim of 
general value. 

The texts of the fourth year may be chosen to give particular power 
in the rapid reading of special material : Commercial texts and busi- 
ness correspondence for the pupil who expects to enter commercial 
life ; scientific French or German for him who expects to go to a tech- 
nical school. In general, however, the work will be merely a contin- 
uation and extension of that of the preceding two years, introducing 
more difficult texts and more rapid reading; adopting a more schol- 
arly and critical attitude toward questions of grammar and style; 
making the foreign language largely, perhaps almost entirely, the 
language of the class; demanding more initiative and a larger inde- 
pendence on the part of the pupil, yet being ever mindful of Goethe's 
line, " Bedenkt ihr habet weiches Holz zu spalten." 

In seeking to attain the special ends for which any subject is pe- 
culiarly well adapted, the real teacher will ever bear in mind those 
general aims that are indispensable in all teaching that is worthy to 
be called education. Habits of industry, concentration, accurate ob- 
servation, intelligent discrimination, systematic arrangement and 
presentation, careful memorizing, independent thinking so far out- 
Aveigh the advantages gained merely by knowing something about a 
particular topic that they are perhaps too generally assumed to be 
universal, and, like the air we breathe or the water we drink, are 
sometimes forgotten or neglected. The personality of the teacher and 
the manner in which he works, rather than the subject he teaches or 
the method he uses, will make for those elements which, after all, are 
the great objects of secondary education, the business of which is 
indeed to impart knowledge that is likely to be useful, but far more 
to develop in the child those tastes, powers, and habits that fit for 
happy efficient living. 

II. METHOD. 

Only one reasonable explanation can be given for the persistency 
of the conflict among different methods of teaching foreign lan- 
guages. It is that each method which has won any considerable 
favor has in it elements of good, and has secured results which seemed 
desirable to those who used the method; indeed, we may perhaps 



COMMITTEE ON MODEEN LANGUAGES. 45 

go further and say that the worst of a dozen methods, employed by 
a strong teacher with underlying purpose well in mind, will give a 
more valuable training and better results than any method when em- 
ployed by an inferior teacher. It is probable, too, that one method 
is better than another for doing some things but less effective in 
securing a different end or ends, so that the aim which seems most 
important will determine the method to use in a particular case. 
Doubtless, too, the equipment of certain teachers makes it possible for 
them to work best with a method which a different teacher would not 
wisely choose. Instead, then, of trying to lay out in detail the " best 
method," we should consider various methods that have been found 
good, endeavor to see wherein their merit lies, and to decide what 
method seems especially well suited to various conditions and to 
different types of classes or teachers. In the Report of the Committee 
of Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America (D. C. 
Heath & Co.), Section III, entitled "A critical review of methods 
of teaching," has well outlined the chief methods and their char- 
acteristic features; and we shall assume that the reader is familiar 
with that report, which has been the guide and standard of modern- 
language instruction in the United States. It is thought, however, 
that improved conditions make it now possible to take a somewhat 
more advanced position than was advisable in 1898. 

Methods may be classified as " direct," which seek to eliminate 
the mother tongue, endeavoring from the beginning to associate 
directly the thought and the foreign expression; and "indirect," 
that base their work on the child's knowledge of his own language 
and depend largely on preliminary grammatical instruction, trans- 
lation, and explanation in the vernacular. Few advocates of direct 
methods are now so extreme as to reject all use of the mother tongue; 
nor would any good teacher who uses in general an indirect method 
fail to employ many devices for getting direct association of thought 
and the foreign speech. The grammatical and the reading methods 
may be called indirect; the phonetic, which has grown into the 
" new " or " reform " (often now spoken of as " the direct " method), 
the Gouin or psychological, and the natural, Heness-Sauveur or 
Berlitz methods, may be called direct. A hard and fast line could 
scarcely be drawn, however. Some teachers who begin with a gram- 
matical or a reading method use the foreign language largely in their 
later work, while many of the best exponents of the reform or of the 
Gouin methods do not hesitate to employ the mother tongue freely 
at first in stimulating the pupil to the thought desired. 

As aims suitable for the first year we have mentioned phonetic 
accuracy, grammatical comprehension, and interest in the foreign 
nation. To secure the first a very large amount of oral drill is essen- 
tial. It is necessary, moreover, that this drill aim at accuracy and 



1 



46 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

not at the slipshod approximations that make the results of some 
attempts to use a direct method as unsatisfactory from a phonetic as 
from a grammatical standpoint. As pupils grow older and their 
imitative faculties become less acute, more attention must be given to 
the vocal organs and to the theory of sound formation ; the relations 
of sounds and the distinctions between them must be more carefully 
explained, and a larger amount of phonetic drill is required. Neg- 
lect of this is fatal. The unfortunates who are allowed to become 
fluent in ill-pronounced French or German never recover; their 
sound perceptions are blurred, instead of being educated; the only 
compensation is that they themselves are mercifully unconscious of 
the suffering which their vocal atrocities inflict upon others. The 
man trained by the grammatical method usually knows that he can not 
pronounce, and so does not attempt it; the badly trained victim of a 
superficial conversational method flays complacently the unhappy 
language. A teacher who can not pronounce well but is, unfortu- 
nately, compelled to teach does less harm, therefore, by omitting pro- 
nunciation as completely as possible than by teaching a pronunciation 
that is a bad habit likely to persist. Good teaching, however, implies 
a well-equipped teacher, and a good pronunciation is fundamental. 

The care with which pronunciation is taught should extend to the 
English as well as to the French or German; the immediate result 
of the work will be well-spoken French or German, but the educa- 
tional value in a wider sense should be an appreciation of the beauty 
of clearly enunciated, distinct speech in general, the habit of noticing 
sounds and inflections, and a desire to speak well. 

For teaching pronunciation, some prefer phonetic texts, but a 
majority of our best teachers do not feel this to be necessary. Some 
would use them for French, but not for German or Spanish. Noth- 
ing like a course in phonetics should be attempted in teaching a for- 
eign language in a high school, but, where mere imitation fails, a 
teacher with phonetic training can at times give briefly helpful direc- 
tions for making certain sounds and for appreciating sound distinc- 
tions. There should be much distinct speaking by the teacher ; repe- 
tition in unison and singly by the pupils; unwearying drill until the 
sounds are right and the swing of the word group well imitated. 
Most important are the vowels; consonants are more easily acquired. 
Separate sounds, syllables, words, and phrases must all be practiced. 
In time the foreign idiom should become the usual language of the 
class, and even seem a natural means of communication between 
teacher and pupil outside the class. 

With the aim of accurate pronunciation always in mind, the par- 
ticular material treated is relatively unimportant. As speedily and 
completely as possible, thought and sound should be directly joined, 
but whether the stimulus to the thought should be primarily an 



COMMITTEE ON" MODERN LANGUAGES. 47 

object, a gesture, a picture, or a book, is a question that may well 
be left to the discretion of the teacher. The best practice is probably 
to employ, as far as time allows, every available means, separately 
and in combination, to impress permanently and together thought 
and sound, written sign and muscular movement. Ear and eye, 
tongue and hand, should be in constant interaction with the busy 
brain, each exciting and aiding the others. Undoubtedly a normal 
spelling makes for a wrong pronunciation no less in the foreign 
language than in our own, but until men adopt everywhere a pho- 
netic alphabet and spelling we shall be obliged to associate words as 
sounded with their signs as normally printed or written, and it is a 
fair question when this association should begin. In teaching a for- 
eign language, the sound should certainly come first; it should be 
practiced and repeated in connection with the thought until it is 
likely to be remembered, and then only is it safe to associate the word 
with the conventional spelling. 

Whatever be the method employed, grammatical comprehension 
is demanded as soon as the words are grouped so as to express real 
thought. Fundamental concepts of action and actor, subject and ob- 
ject of a verb, adjectival and adverbial modifiers, the connectives of 
speech, various modes and times of action, etc., must be brought out 
with a clearness that in a child's mind is often absent, dormant, or 
vague in connection with the mother tongue. That inflectional forms 
are often necessary to express these varying concepts is not infre- 
quently a discovery for the pupil, and the fact should give the con- 
cepts greater defmiteness and importance in his mind. In the 
real education of the boy, clarifying and classifying these concepts 
and getting him to regard language objectively and to appreciate to 
some extent its mechanism, is far more important than the mere acqui- 
sition of a foreign tongue. So from the beginning sentence structure 
should be so presented that the elements of the word group stand out 
in their proper relations and that the inflectional forms carry with 
them a comprehension of those relations. Whatever be the method, 
the word groups presented should be simple enough to insure correct 
understanding of grammatical relations (syntax), progress should 
be sufficiently slow for the pupil to fix one form before others are 
introduced, and abundant swift illustrations, chiefly oral, each 
as short as possible, should spike together correct pronunciation 
and correct feeling for inflectional forms. Here, too, effective 
work must at the same time build a firm foundation for the new 
language and develop an appreciation of general speech-truths that 
will make the course profitable for him who drops out of the class 
as well as for him who continues therein. In arithmetic abstruse 
problems have no proper place with beginners ; so, in language study, 
simple sentences with limited vocabulary and frequent repetitions 






48 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

should furnish the material for the first year. Long, complicated 
sentences, like puzzle problems, are an entertaining and perhaps 
profitable exercise for those who have a taste for them, but it is cer- 
tain that we rarely have to deal with such problems, and if a pupil 
is not naturally clever in solving them, forcing him to attempt them 
involves a most unprofitable expenditure of time and energy. 

Among general truths of language the importance of word order 
and the great significance of the pause, with its effect on what imme- 
diately precedes or follows, need to be especially studied by the pupil 
and in some cases, perhaps, pondered long and carefully by the 
teacher. 

III. MATERIAL. 

There exists a very wide difference of opinion as to the choice of 
material to be used with beginners. Aside from classes that for the 
first year study the grammar only — may their number ever grow 
less — the texts used may be roughly classified as — 

(1) Conversation manuals, based on daily life, foreign travel, etc. 

(2) Selections from historical or scientific readings, regarded as 
having intrinsic value. 

(3) Fiction, fairy tales, etc., regarded as having little intrinsic 
value, but suited to interest and attract the pupil. 

(4) Texts of literary reputation, as Telemaque. 

However varying tastes and circumstances may influence the de- 
cision among these groups, it is reasonable to assume that the nation 
whose history, literature, or commercial importance makes its lan- 
guage worth studying should have elements of interest for every intel- 
ligent person, and that arousing this interest must play an important 
part both in opening a field of wholesome enjoyment and in stimulat- 
ing a desire to continue the subject gladly and diligently. Since be- 
ginners can not be expected to have enough comprehension of a new 
language to appreciate literary style, and since high-school freshmen 
ought not to have had experiences that fit them really to feel great 
literature, most texts of literary reputation should be absolutely elimi- 
nated from first-year work. In choosing from the other three groups, 
phonetic and grammatical ends seem to be as well served by one as 
by another. The choice may therefore depend on our third aim — 
arousing an interest in the foreign nation. For this aim, scientific 
reading must be of the simplest type, dealing with such topics as the 
geography or the inventions of the nation ; historical selections must 
be equally simple and should deal with the popular features of the 
nation's history; and with most pupils this material can be used only 
sparingly without loss of interest. Some pupils look with scorn upon 
the fairy tale as beneath their dignity. This attitude is often merely 
a pose, and the folk tale especially has qualities of human interest 






COMMITTEE ON" MODERN LANGUAGES. 49 

that, when set off by local color, rarely fail to attract old as well as 
young readers. Fiction exclusively, however, is apt to create an im- 
pression that the work is not of a serious nature. 

There remains the field of realien, real things about the actual life 
of the people, and it is probably wise to draw upon this source for 
most of the material for the first year, as it combines the advantages 
of general interest with a feeling that what is read is of a real and 
substantial nature. An ideal text for the first year might then be 
described as one that, constantly employing the simplest expressions 
and constructions, gives attractive glimpses of the common life and 
scenes in the foreign land, with bits of its history, natural features, 
inventions, and folklore. The " guidebook " type must, however, be 
avoided as uninteresting to the large number of our pupils who ex- 
pect never to travel abroad. 

IV. DETAILS OF PROCEDURE. 

Having agreed that our first aims should be phonetic training, 
grammatical comprehension, and interest in the foreign nation, and 
that our text should treat largely of the life of the people and be 
of the simplest type, we come next to the question of details in the 
treatment of this material. Experience indicates that in this respect 
no universal agreement can be secured, but certain general principles 
of procedure may be suggested and certain dangers of common 
practice may be pointed out. 

First, the time devoted at the beginning to learning accurately the 
sounds of the new language is usually quite insufficient. It would be 
advantageous if an arrangement could be made by which for several 
weeks no home study would be assigned in a foreign language, allow- 
ing teachers of other subjects to utilize that time in exchange for 
classroom time. In this way all work done in the new language 
might be done in class and under the direction of the teacher. If 
home lessons must be assigned during those first few weeks, they 
should be such as to involve the least possible danger of fixing wrong 
speech habits. The use of phonetic script probably makes it possible 
to assign home work with less danger of associating wrong sounds 
with the normal spelling. If it is not thought wise to use the phonetic 
script, keep the vocabulary small, repeat the same words again and 
again with all the variety of simple real uses that the ingenuity of 
the teacher can discover; let home work include nothing that has 
not been exhaustively worked over in class. Much copying of text 
and writing out at home the most useful inflections of a very large 
number of words will fill up the time out of class that some teachers 
feel obliged to demand lest pupils get at first the unfortunate im- 
pression that the new study is a " cinch." This copying of text, 
10602°— 13 1 



i 

! 



50 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION". 

varied as soon as possible by changes of person, number, tense, etc., 
is a good introduction to the writing from dictation which should 
be soon begun and diligently practiced. 

Many fierce battles have been waged over the question of transla- 
tion. It is probable that translation can not possibly be avoided 
in the earlier stages of study. A child can not see a familiar object 
without having the name by which he has known it flash instantly 
into his mind. A thought is bound to seek expression in the language 
with which similar thoughts have been most closely associated, and 
once formulated in this language, subsequent expressions of that 
thought will be more or less a translation. As it is always best to 
face facts as they are and to reckon with them, no matter how dis- 
pleasing they may be, the wise procedure here is probably to attack 
translation early and try to teach pupils how a translation ought 
to be made, passing from one language to thought, and from the 
thought to its expression in the second language. Left to himself, 
a pupil will certainly translate, and he is equally certain to do it 
wrongly, substituting English words for those of the text, and then 
guessing the meaning from the English (?) result. The two lan- 
guages are the two slices of bread in a linguistic sandwich, and they 
should always be separated by a filling of meaty thought, so that 
the words of each language are in direct contact with the thought 
and not with each other. This insistence on joining thought and 
sound should apply as well to all use of the mother tongue, and fail- 
ure in this respect accounts for many of the stupid utterances so 
common in our classrooms. 

Using a vocabulary should mean more than merely finding an 
English substitute for the foreign word. The second and most im- 
portant part of the process is visualizing or otherwise securing a 
clear and definite concept of what is meant, then associating perma- 
nently this concept, and not the English word with the foreign word. 
If this association of concept and foreign word can be secured as 
swiftly and certainly without the intervention of English, the Eng- 
lish, of course, is superfluous; but, if English is the quickest and 
most convenient means of securing this association, there seems to 
be no valid reason for depriving ourselves of its aid. Only, with 
or without English, we must not fail to attain as our iesult a direct 
and accurate association of thought and the foreign word. 

Here the Gouin-Betis or psychological method differs widely from 
the extreme types of " natural " methods, which, in the attempt to 
create an atmosphere of foreign thought, rigorously exclude all Eng- 
lish. In teaching " pendule," for instance, Betis did not show the 
pupils a clock, neither was he satisfied with merely saying " clock," 
but he cleverly used English to lead the class to visualize various 
types of clock known as " pendule," and left them with a clear and 



COMMITTEE ON" MODEMST LANGUAGES. 51 

abiding knowledge of the word. So, in a class of beginners, Walter, 
who has adopted many of Gouin's suggestions, uses the mother tongue 
freely in associating clear and correct concepts with the new word he 
is teaching. If then we finally get the direct association which we 
desire, we see that the question whether English is or is not excluded 
becomes an unessential detail of procedure and is largely a matter 
of economy of time. When the pupil's equipment fits him to under- 
stand an explanation in French as well as one in English, use the 
French, for with equal thought content an hour of French alone is 
better practice in learning French than an hour half French and half 
English. 

Reference to the Gouin and the natural methods suggests another 
wide difference between them, in which the truth lies with neither 
extreme. For Gouin, the verb and the verb series are the soul of 
speech; for the natural methods, all revolves about the substantive, 
the tangible thing, that can be seen and shown in connection with the 
new word presented. In truth, verb and noun must go hand in hand, 
for an actor without action is as sterile as an action without an actor 
is unthinkable. In any concrete example word order and the con- 
struction of the sentence will show which is the more important in 
the mind of the speaker and which must be emphasized as the better 
key to his meaning. 

Among other processes that are commonly employed we may men- 
tion grammatical study, reading aloud, writing from dictation, con- 
versation, translation from and into the foreign language (version 
and theme) , reproduction orally or in writing, paraphrasing, compo- 
sition based on the text, and free composition. It is not intended to 
say what processes should be used or how they should be combined 
by any teacher, but the following suggestions are offered for making 
as effective as possible whatever work the teacher may decide to 
undertake. 

Grammar can be regarded as an end by the philologist only. For 
all pupils in a secondary school it must be the handmaid of the text 
and must be regarded as existing solely in order to make clearer the 
language which it serves. The need of a rule and its application 
should be apparent to the pupil before he is required to learn the 
rule: words should be seen in use with a context before they are 
classified and memorized ; the force of an inflection should be made 
plain from its use in a word group before the pupil is asked to inflect 
the paradigm ; and in the unceasing repetition necessary to fix inflec- 
tional forms care should be taken that they are never parrot like 
repetitions, devoid of thought. Make the text the center of all in- 
struction ; base upon it grammar, conversation, and composition ; and 
the grammatical knowledge derived from the text as a model will be 
applied intelligently in written and oral expression. 



52 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

Reading aloud — now too much neglected in the mother tongue — 
should be a favorite exercise. With large classes no drill is so ef- 
fective in teaching pronunciation as reading in unison after the 
teacher. In later work intelligent reading aloud is helpful in fixing 
the foreign language in the memory ; it may take the place of trans- 
lation where the simple character of the text and the manner of 
reading give sufficient evidence that the meaning is clear; and the 
practice is enjoyable and useful to those who form the habit of 
reading aloud in their own study. 

Writing from dictation has always been much employed in French 
schools for French children learning their own language, and it is 
much to be commended. While less difficult than reproduction or 
paraphrasing, it is an admirable test of the care with which a passage 
has been studied, and the dictation of unseen passages is an excellent 
criterion of the pupil's ability to understand the spoken language. 
Dictation may begin early in the course, and until the very end it 
will be found useful both as a test and as training. 

Conversation has been alternately praised and condemned. Some 
regard it as enlivening, stimulating, and instructive — the most en- 
joyable and profitable of all exercises. To others it is futile, inane, 
productive of no valuable results, and terribly wasteful of time. It 
seems clear that not all teachers and not all classes can use conversa- 
tion to good advantage in high-school work. The teacher must be 
inspiring and perfectly at home in the language; the class must be 
alert, responsive, and homogeneous; the work must be systematically 
planned and followed out swiftly and directly to a definite end. 
Otherwise the time can be spent better in other ways. With large 
classes the necessary conditions rarely obtain, and unfortunately 
most high-school classes are too large for the best work. Although 
conversation as a formal class exercise is apt to be a failure, there is 
no class in which a competent teacher will not find many opportuni- 
ties to converse easily in the foreign language, now giving a simple 
explanation, now asking a question and getting an easy answer, all 
so naturally that no one seems aware that the foreign language is 
used. The more of this the better. Conversation of this kind is the 
straight road to effective possession of a language; neither strained 
nor forced, it is good work. 

Translation, too, has its warm friends and its bitter enemies. Re- 
formers have worked as hard to drive it out of the class as they have 
done to drag conversation in ; but theme and version are still neither 
dead nor moribund, and there is no prospect that an exercise which has 
maintained itself since the beginning of language study is going to 
vanish in the next generation or two. The difficulty is that the meat 
in the sandwich has a tendency to drop out and leave only the bare 
bread — voces et inter eas nihil — in other words, that translation comes 



COMMITTEE ON" MODEB2T LANGUAGES. 53 

to be a mechanical substitution of the words of one language for the 
words of another, with little or no thought in the process, while trans- 
lation ought to mean the study of a passage until its thought is 
clearly apprehended, and then an effort to put that exact thought into 
the other language with all the force and beauty that our command 
of the second language makes possible. This, of course, is translation 
of the ideal sort, but it is the kind of translation at which all transla- 
tion should aim, and the only kind which will contribute effectively 
to a command of the foreign language and an appreciation of its 
qualities. With the other more common kind of translation the pupil 
never reads French and German, but only the shabby English into 
which he has more or less correctly paraphrased the original; he 
never writes real French or German, but only English with a foreign 
vocabulary. Such translation is rightly condemned as vicious and de- 
moralizing, a veritable hindrance to the learner; but only the most 
vigorous and persistent efforts will keep the beginner from trans- 
lating in just that way. Among helpful devices for preventing it we 
suggest oral translation of sentences heard but not seen, the transla- 
tion, with book closed, of a sentence that the pupil has just read, or 
other ways for avoiding the mot a mot and securing a grasp of the 
word group as a whole with a complete meaning. 

"What do you mean?" " So and so." " Then say that !" will 
sometimes get a real translation instead of the monstrosity that has 
been first offered by the pupil. 

Underlying all the discussion for and against translation is the 
inevitable fact that not one student in a thousand can expect to gain 
such control of a second language that he can frame his thought in 
it as quickly and effectively as in his own; hence, whenever a thing 
is to him real and important, he will think it through first in the 
vernacular, after which any expression of the thought in a second 
language can not fail to be more or less consciously and directly a 
translation. The foreign correspondent must translate when he 
communicates the information received from abroad; he must trans- 
late when he writes in a foreign language the instructions received 
in English from his employer; the engineer, the lawyer, the physi- 
cian, the scientist, the philosopher, the author must all translate when 
they proceed to use in their business the information gleaned from 
foreign sources. Even the teacher must translate when he tells his 
associates what our colleagues in France or Germany say of the 
direct methods. The practical thing, then, is to train the pupil to 
translate as he ought, and to depend for his expression in the new 
language, not on dictionary substitutes, but on the treasure of foreign 
words and expressions which he has acquired and learned to associate 
with their correct meaning. And the time to teach him this, which 



54 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

is no easy thing to learn, is while he is learning the language, for 
practice in doing it must be long and careful if it is to be successful. 

In the give and take of conversation the rapidity of the process 
often excludes translation, but there are comparatively few who will 
ever converse en joy ably in a foreign tongue, and the long practice 
which is an essential condition will usually bring with it the power. 

To read and understand a foreign language without translation is 
much easier than to speak or write in it. Until, however, one can 
give in his own language a swift and accurate rendering of what he 
has read there is good reason to doubt whether he has understood 
clearly and completely or whether he has been satisfied with the 
vague sort of semicomprehension which, if unchallenged, sometimes 
passes for understanding when our pupils read the mother tongue. 
Inability to translate rapidly and well must imply either failure to 
understand clearly what has been read or else a poor command of 
English. If the latter, the American boy or girl needs nothing so 
much as just the kind of training in English which this translation 
affords; if the former, we need to try the pupil by the test which 
most swiftly and certainly reveals the weakness. Hence translation 
of the right sort, both from and into the foreign language, must not 
be omitted from high-school courses. 

On the other hand the student must be trained to get thought 
directly from the original, and instruction in the foreign language 
is not intended primarily as instruction in English. So the wise 
teacher will give but a portion of his time to translation, and he will 
avoid too great use of spoken English by having a considerable part 
of the translation which he deems necessary written rather than oral. 

The only safe use of a foreign language is that which imitates the 
expressions of scholarly natives. Hence all work of the learner must 
be based on good models and the stages of imitation seem to be : Ex- 
act reproduction; paraphrasing, with variations of persons, number, 
tense, etc., and substitution of other suitable words for those of the 
text; free reproduction or composition based on the text and closely 
following it; and free composition. The last is the highest and most 
difficult achievement, and it can not wisely be attempted until the 
learner has had ample experience with the forms of expression which 
the native uses in similar composition. Some excellent teachers refuse 
to attempt it before the fourth year of the course. Premature at- 
tempts at free composition are as bad for style as premature chatter- 
ing is bad for good pronunciation. Both result in fixing wrong 
notions and bad habits which are very hard to overcome. It is better 
policy to make haste slowly and to be sure that the proper foundation 
is laid before we try to build upon it. 

How far may we reasonably expect to go in the second and third 
years of study ? Much will depend on how successful we are in over- 



COMMITTEE ON" MODERN LANGUAGES. 55 

coming the aversion of parents and school boards to the elimination 
of the incompetent at the end of the first year, and this must be done 
on the ground that for those whom we seek to eliminate further 
study of the foreign language is less profitable than the same time 
spent studying something in which they can get better results. If 
modern-language classes can thus be restricted to those who show a 
reasonable fondness and aptitude for the study, by the end of the 
third year the work accomplished should be about as set forth for the 
intermediate course in the Report of the Committee of Twelve. It 
is probable that most teachers will prefer to read in class a some- 
what smaller number of pages than is there suggested. There is a 
strong belief that a small amount thoroughly prepared and carefully 
studied leaves a larger permanent possession than is retained from 
reading hastily several pages, and some would reduce the amount 
required to one-half that specified by the committee of twelve. Others 
fear that asking a smaller amount will mean more dawdling, less 
work, and the same poor quality with only half the quantity. The 
solution seems to be a reasonable amount of honest work, at times so 
concentrated as to permanently impress essentials and at other 
times so distributed as to stimulate alertness, develop the power of 
swift vision and rapid judgment, and give opportunity for a fairly 
wide range of style and vocabulary. In either type of lesson the 
teacher must have a clear notion of just what he is working for and 
he must devote himself to getting it. The Report of the Committee 
of Twelve appeared about 15 years ago, and the improvement in the 
equipment of teachers and in the methods commonly employed at 
present should make it possible to insist more strongly upon the 
oral side of the instruction. If this is effectively done, the greater 
thoroughness of the treatment in class should more than compensate 
for a reduced number of pages read. 

For the fourth year we may add to our general aims such special 
work in scientific or commercial subjects as may be required by par- 
ticular schools. As to the amount of work, it is probable that the 
advanced courses outlined in the Report of the Committee of Twelve 
are rather more than can be expected of even the best high schools 
in a four years' course. 

In the fourth year the foreign language will be generally used in 
class, and good pupils should develop considerable facility of correct 
expression. Nevertheless, in French, for instance, we, with our maxi- 
mum of four years' (20 hours') study, can not hope for results equal 
to those attained by a German oberrealschule with nine years (4? 
hours) or of a realgymnasium, with seven years (29 hours) backed 
by nine years of Latin. To-day the work of our best schools is at 
least as good as the comparison of time allowances would lead us to 
expect ; and if we compare the probable utility of a foreign language 



56 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

to the average American boy with its usefulness to his French or 
German cousin, his ratio of efficiency would doubtless be greater than 
his ratio of need. That, however, is no answer to the demand that 
an American pupil who wishes good instruction in a foreign language 
should be able to have as complete a course and do as good work as 
the French or German pupil. The committee believes, however, that 
this increased efficiency can not come through an increased time al- 
lowance in the present high-school years; nor can more be expected 
than our best teachers are now doing with the time and material at 
their disposal. Improvement must be sought first, from an increase 
in the number of well-equipped and efficient teachers, and, second, 
from an extension of the years of modern language study downward 
to the age of 10, at which time the boy abroad has begun it. 

V. TEACHERS AND TEXTS. 

If the American public is about to insist on better work in the 
field of modern languages, it must recognize that the first essential is 
a body of well-prepared teachers and that the training of such teach- 
ers is long and expensive, including foreign residence of at least a 
year in addition to the usual equipment of an American teacher. 
Unless the schools will pay a teacher of French or German enough 
more than they pay a teacher of English or science or history or 
mathematics to cover this initial expense, the colleges must so plan 
the modern-language work for those who intend to teach that the 
youth on graduating may be as competent to teach French or German 
as he is to teach the other subjects. Perhaps he is so already; but 
while neither he nor his pupils are likely to be tested by the man in 
the street as to his knowledge of Latin or physics or algebra, in this 
cosmopolitan age he can not turn a corner, enter a hotel or a street 
car without facing some well-informed and pitiless critic who knows 
at once that his speech is not that of Paris or Berlin. The critic 
may, indeed, be a cook or a fiddler, but he hears with scorn our poor 
instructor's attempts to speak French or German and is not reluctant 
to express his derision. Nor will it do to hire the cook or the fiddler 
to teach for us, for they have already shown too often that they can 
not meet the other requirements of our high schools. We must have 
a large number of American-born teachers who know the foreign 
language too well to be ridiculous when they attempt to speak it. As 
school boards are likely to insist that a teacher is merely a teacher, 
worth so many dollars a year, without reference to what he teaches 
or what it cost to learn it, the colleges seem bound to face the problem 
of meeting the demand for young people better fitted to teach French, 
German, or Spanish. But just how they are to do this is a problem 
for the colleges and not for this committee. 



COMMITTEE ON MODERN" LANGUAGES. 57 

Section V of the Report of the Committee of Twelve deals with 
the study of modern languages in the grades below the high school. 
We are in complete accord with the conclusions of that report that 
the study of a foreign language in the grades should be optional, 
restricted to those who will probably continue it, and allowed only 
in small classes, with a daily lesson, and with a competent teacher. 
But here we meet the obstacles of precedent, which says that it has 
not been done that way hitherto; of routine, which pleads that 
such special arrangements would involve great trouble and incon- 
venience to the schools; and of expense, which asserts that such 
teachers are hard to find, prefer high-school service, and could not 
be kept without a salary larger than that paid to most other teachers 
in the same school. Possibly we might add to these, administrative 
inability to understand the situation and grapple with it success- 
fully ; for it is the task of an expert, and few school boards or school 
superintendents are modern language experts. 

Here, too, we find ourselves in the vicious circle of insufficient 
teachers, due to insufficient college training, due to insufficient ma- 
terial, due to insufficient teachers, and so on round again. The only 
way to break into such a circle is to break into it wherever we strike 
it ; to demand that the cities at once get some good modern language 
work done in the grades, and pay a reasonable price for it; that the 
colleges at once give especial attention to training more competent 
teachers of modern languages; and that ill-equipped teachers get 
to work in summer schools or take a Sabbatical year abroad, the 
cities sharing this burden by granting them half pay on reasonable 
conditions. 

If many important points of modern language work are not con- 
sidered in this statement, it is because the Report of the Committee of 
Twelve, made 15 years ago, was so scholarly and so comprehensive 
that it would be a work of supererogation to repeat, and evidence of 
presumption to attempt to improve most that was said in that report. 
It is sufficient to call attention to certain lines along which further 
constructive suggestions seemed likely to be useful. 

It has been stated that conditions have so changed in the past 15 
years that a list of desirable texts ought to be published now, but the 
experience of the German teachers some years ago in publishing a 
" kanon " of French and English school texts showed the efficient 
performance of so great a work to be far beyond the resources of this 
committee ; and with the many sources of information now available, 
it seemed best to mention no specific texts. We venture only to sug- 
gest that in choosing a text for any particular class, one should 
consider — 

The date of the text. For school work modern texts are almost 
always preferable. 



1 

I 



58 KEORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

Its length. Long texts grow monotonous and give too little 
variety of style and vocabulary. 

Its national quality. It should be a distinctive product of the race 
it depicts. 

Its adaptation to the age, sex, and thought of the pupil. 

Its informational content. Without being dull it should give 
something worth remembering. 

William B. Snow, Chairman. 

English High School, 

Boston, Mass. 

The other members of the committee on modern languages are as 
follows : 

J. F. Broussard, University of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, La. 
William H. Clifford, East Side High School, Denver, Colo. 
Annie D. Dunster, William Penn High School, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Charles H. Handschin, professor of German, Miami University, Oxford. Ohio. 
Joel Hathaway, High School of Commerce, Boston, Mass. 
Frederick S. Hemry, Tome School, Port Deposit, Md. 
Carl F. Krause, Jamaica High School, Jamaica, N. Y. 

Alexis F. Lange, dean of the College of Faculties, University of California, 
Berkeley, Cal. 

Edward Manley, Englewood High School, Chicago, 111. 
Alfred Nonnez, Walnut Hills High School, Cincinnati, Ohio. 
William R. Price, State department of education, Albany, N. Y. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
HOUSEHOLD ARTS. 

It is the purpose of the group of courses offered under household 
arts to prepare girls not only to become better homemakers, but to 
make them more intelligent concerning those occupations which were 
formerly a part of every home but have recently been taken from the 
home, and to give them an appreciation of the factors that make up 
the municipal environment, and of the influence of these on the home. 
The immediate aim of such work is to give the girl an understand- 
ing of the responsibility and function of the homemaker through a 
knowledge of the elementary principles of biology, chemistry, physics, 
and bacteriology as applied to food preservation and preparation 
and to the conservation of the health of the family. Laboratory 
work should be given so that the girls may acquire skill in cooking, 
making clothes and household equipment, planning houses, and also 
some experience in purchasing household supplies and equipment. 

Because the larger proportion of our girls in the public schools 
never enter the high school, work in household arts should be begun 
in the grades ; many elementary schools are already offering work in 
" sewing " and " cooking." 






COMMITTEE ON" HOUSEHOLD ARTS. 50 

Under " sewing," girls in the grades learn the technique of the 
various stitches and of making simple garments, cut either from 
drafted or commercial patterns. In the high school, under " cloth- 
ing," an opportunity should be given to review the work of the 
grades, but advanced work should be given and a broader aspect of 
the subject presented; the sociological, economic, and historical 
phases of the work should be emphasized, more complicated patterns 
should be made, and the principles of art and design should be con- 
sidered in relation to dress and household furnishings. The ad- 
vanced courses may include the history of costume, the care and 
cleaning of personal and household linen, and a study of the various 
adulterants used in fabrics of different kinds. Those girls who enter 
the high school with the technique of sewing already learned have a 
distinct advantage over those who must master this during their 
high-school course. It is obvious, therefore, that either we must 
plan two courses for high schools or we must offer a preparatory 
course in sewing which shall be comparable to that given in the ele- 
mentary schools. 

A similar problem confronts us in food work. Some school systems 
give one, others two years of cooking in the grades. In these classes 
the girls learn the processes of food preparation, the composition of 
the various foods, and in a general way the functions of the food 
principles in the body. To ask the girl to repeat this in her high- 
school course would be futile, and yet the high-school girl must have 
this elementary course before advanced work can be taken. Ob- 
viously, both groups of girls, those who enter with no preparation 
and those who enter with either one or two years of preparation, can 
not be put into the same classes, nor can they cover the same ground 
during their high-school course. Therefore, in the food work, as well 
as in the sewing work, two courses must be planned or else a non- 
credit course preparatory to the high-school work must be given. 

The work in the grades in both cooking and sewing is given largely 
from the standpoint of manual training — that is, the emphasis is on 
manipulation ; the how, rather than the why, is stressed. In the high 
school the emphasis should be on the reasons for doing things, and 
the food work should be given largely from the point of view of ap- 
plied science; and, in order that the girls may have some science to 
apply, it is desirable that a course in general science should precede 
the work in foods or be taken parallel with it. For this reason it 
seems better to put this course (foods) in the second year of the high 
school. This leaves an opportunity for those girls who have had no 
work before entering to take a preliminary course during their first 
year. Similarly a preparatory course in sewing might be offered 
during this year. 



60 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

Our suggested course in household arts consists of five units of 
work ; one in cooking and sewing planned for the grades, and the re- 
maining units for the high school. We believe that the time is not 
far distant when courses in cooking and sewing will form an integral 
part of every elementary school system, so that we feel justified in 
working out the courses on this basis; but until school systems have 
introduced this work, the preparatory courses suggested should be 
offered in the high school. No high-school credit, however, should 
be allowed for these, for the committee is opposed to giving high- 
school credit for courses which consist largely of mere manipulation. 

In the high school one unit of work is planned for each year. 
During the first two years the work should consist of one unit of 
textiles and clothing and one unit of foods. Each of these courses 
may be taken for one year or they may be continued throughout the 
two years. It is often desirable that the work in clothing be taken 
in two years, whereas the work in foods may very well be given 
during the second year, thus affording opportunity for science work 
during the first year. However, those school systems which are un- 
able to engage a specially trained teacher for this work may find it 
an advantage to have both courses continue over the two years, for by 
this means adjoining towns could employ one teacher to take charge 
of this work in several schools. Neither of these courses should be 
dependent upon other courses in the high school, although courses 
in art and science taken previously or parallel should materially en- 
rich them, and the principles learned there should be applied in the 
household-arts courses. 

The following topics are suggested for the work of these first 
two years. Laboratory work should be given in both cases, but for 
our present purpose it will suffice to list merely the subjects to be 
considered. 

Textiles and clothing: History of clothing; hygiene of clothing; a 
study of cotton and linen fabrics, including manufacture, weaving, 
dyeing, bleaching, printing, mercerizing; laboratory work for iden- 
tification of fabrics; fundamental principles of garment making ap- 
plied to underwear and waists; drafting patterns; comparison of 
homemade garments with factory made at same cost; comparison of 
cost of homemade article with shop article of same value; sweatshops; 
consumers' league. 

Foods: Canning and preserving fruit, involving a brief study of 
bacteria yeasts, and molds; a comparison of home-canned fruit 
with that in the market as to quality, cost, and labor involved; the 
composition of fruits, leading to a study of food principles; separa- 
tion of the food principles from some common foods ; simple chemical 
and physical tests for each; a study of protein, carbohydrates, and 
fats, with the effect of heat upon them and ways of cooking them; 



COMMITTEE ON HOUSEHOLD ARTS. 61 

a study of meats and vegetables, with ways of preparing and com- 
bining them ; the cost of food in relation to its composition ; different 
functions of food in the body; the amount of food required by the 
body ; the comparative nutritive value of some common foods ; pure- 
food laws and their effect upon the adulteration of food; laboratory 
work involving all the common processes of cooking, with the prepa- 
ration and serving of simple meals. 

The work of the junior year may consist of a half-unit course 
in textiles — dressmaking and millinery — and a half-unit in house 
planning, house decoration and furnishing, and sanitation. The 
work of the senior year may consist of a half-unit course in textiles 
and a half-unit course in dietetics. The textile course in the senior 
year should include a study of the composition of the different fibers, 
detection of the usual adulterants used with them, the principles in- 
volved in the various laundering processes, and costume design. 
Designing and making the graduation dress may well be included. 
The course in dietetics should consist of a more extensive study of 
the nutritive value of foods than that given in the first course; 
methods of detecting food adulterants ; the dietetic needs of the body 
at different ages and under different conditions; the preparation of 
balanced meals for definite costs; consideration of the factors affect- 
ing the cost of living; and the distribution of different incomes for 
family budgets. 

In planning the work of the advanced courses (junior and senior) 
we are supposing work in art and science which should be taken 
during the sophomore and junior years, for a knowledge of the funda- 
mental principles of proportion, projection, color, physics, chemistry, 
and biology is necessary. We hope that the committees that are out- 
lining the work in those subjects will remember that the larger num- 
ber of pupils in those courses are girls and that their interests are 
as worthy of consideration as those of the boys. Direct correlations 
should be made between the household arts and the fine arts on the 
one hand and between the household arts and science on the other. 

We do not advise that all girls should necessarily take the five 
units of work outlined, but we do believe that at least the first three 
units should be required; the last two units may be elective. We 
make this reservation because the girl whose interests lie in other 
directions — in the classics, in commercial work, or who must fulfill 
our present college entrance requirements — can not take all the work 
outlined and the prerequisite courses in art and science. Although 
our committee is not particularly interested in meeting the college 
entrance requirements, nevertheless we recognize the fact that re- 
quirements do exist which make it impossible for a girl to take more 
than the most elementary courses in household arts and at the same 
time complete the prescribed courses ; and we must reckon with them, 



62 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

as a larger and larger proportion of the girls who complete the high- 
school work are going to college. When our committee shall have 
completed its work and shall have shown that, from the standpoint 
of thought content and disciplinary value, work in household arts is 
as valuable as Latin, Greek, or mathematics, then perhaps entrance 
credit will be granted in eastern women's colleges (none of which 
now grant such credit), and the girls will then be able to take a 
larger proportion of work that shall prepare them for that sphere 
in life that most of them are destined to fill. Those who go no fur- 
ther than the high school, those who wish to specialize in household 
arts, and those who are planning to take up a quite different subject 
afterwards are advised to take the five units. 

Only in a general way have we outlined the courses in household 
arts. During the next few years it shall be the duty of the committee 
to make these more detailed and to indicate how other subjects in 
the curriculum may be correlated with them. The preparation of a 
bibliography should also form a part of the work of the committee. 

Amy Louise Daniels, Chairman. 

University of Missouri, Columbia, Bio. 

The other members of the committee on household arts are as 
follows : 

Sarah Louise Arnold, deau of Simmons College, Boston, Mass. 

Josephine Berry, State Agricultural College, Pullman, Wash. 

Mrs. Henrietta Calvin, Oregon State Agricultural College, Corvallis. Oreg. 

Nellie Crooks, Milwaukee-Downer College, Milwaukee, Wis. 

Edna Day, department of home economics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, 
Kans. 

Lilla Frick, supervisor of domestic science, Minneapolis, Minn. 

Charlotte Greer, Technical High School, Cleveland, Ohio. 

Elizabeth L. Kelly, State supervisor of home economics, Baton Rouge, La. 

Helen Kinne, Teachers College, Columbia Uuiversity, New York, N. Y. 

Abby L. Marlatt, home economics department, University of Wisconsin, Mad- 
ison, Wis. 

Elizabeth Matthews, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 

Helena Pincomb, University of Illinois, Urbana, 111. 

Jennie Snow, Chicago Normal School, Chicago, 111. 

Mary Snow, supervisor of domestic science, public schools, Chicago, nL 

Florence Willard, Washington Irving High School, New York, N. Y. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 

MANUAL AETS. 

Since the appointment of the committee on manual arts, its most 
important work has been to reach general agreement as to the most 
fruitful subjects for investigation and report. From the correspon- 
dence and from a conference of a majority of the members held early 



COMMITTEE ON" MANUAL AETS. 63 

in May, it has become clear that questions relating to the place of 
manual arts in secondary education are inextricably interwoven with 
those concerning the place of the secondary school in the general 
plan of public education. That the function of the secondary school 
is in process of rapid evolution is apparent, and the relation of 
manual arts instruction to this new secondary school which is in the 
making is not altogether easy to determine. 

This committee finds itself in substantial agreement with the views 
expressed at the general conference of members of the various com- 
mittees held in Philadelphia in 1913. It believes that all high-school 
subjects should be given with a much clearer conception of the pro- 
visional destination of the pupil, or at least with a fuller knowledge 
of his educational program, with a consequent increase in definiteness 
of purpose. It is held that the discovery of aptitudes is a legitimate 
and important aim for a certain group of pupils. Especially does 
the committee feel that a clearly stated differentiation of purpose is 
not only the highest expression of democracy in education, but that 
it is essential to the very existence of the public-school system, as- 
suring as it will the constant and ever-increasing interest of the 
public in things educational. 

Instruction in any of the manual arts, therefore, in the opinion of 
this committee, if given for a purpose which is reasonable and clearly 
stated, will be as necessary a part of secondary education and will be 
as fully and freely recognized as such as any other subject in the 
curriculum, no matter how strongly buttressed by tradition that sub- 
ject may be. Conversely any course in manual arts which is offered 
without a clearly defined and simply stated purpose is held to be 
intolerable. 

Furthermore, if regard is to be had to the " destination " of the 
pupil, numerous questions at once arise as to the possibility of ad- 
justing school work to what is to be encountered at the end of the 
course. In the past the chief questions of articulation have been 
those which concerned jointly the high school and the college, but 
to-day direct articulation is made also with vocational life. Thus 
vocational guidance and training are coming to be of prime impor- 
tance to the great majority of high-school pupils, and consequently 
factors to be taken into account in any solution of the problems be- 
fore the committee. 

The committee has been practically unanimous in its determination 
to urge upon the general conference the consideration of a revised 
basis for admitting pupils to the secondary school. Teachers of 
manual arts were perhaps among the first to observe that over-age 
children in the upper grammar grades were not necessarily deficient 
in intelligence, but, rather, were different in certain important char- 
acteristics from those whom we have chosen to term their more for- 



64 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

tunate fellows. Such teachers have frequently insisted that it was a 
mistake not to care for children of this type in the secondary school 
instead of holding them back among children of less mature interests 
and ambitions. The committee will, therefore, seek to bring about a 
different basis of admission to secondary schools. While not sug- 
gesting that this standard be adopted for all subjects taught in the 
high school, it insists that courses in manual arts should be open to 
certain children on the ground that they have the ability to do the 
work of these courses acceptably. 

Following the plan suggested at the conference at Philadelphia, 
this committee submits its preliminary report under the following 
heads: (1) Tentative conclusions. (2) Problems for discussion. (3) 
Experiments to be made. 

The committee agrees unanimously to the following: 

TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS. 

1. The major purpose of instruction in manual arts is to contribute 
directly to the vocational efficiency of the pupils. 2. There should be 
developed shorter courses with longer school days and a longer school 
year and with specific vocational purposes. Short vocational courses 
should be made available for pupils of secondary-school age who can 
profit measurably by the instruction given, even when such pupils 
have not fulfilled all the requirements for graduation from the ele- 
mentary school. 3. There must be an earlier opportunity for differ- 
entiation of purposes, courses, and methods. 

PROBLEMS FOR DISCUSSION. 

1. Is college preparation one of the legitimate aims of manual-arts 
instruction? 2. To what extent can general manual-arts courses be 
utilized as a basis for differentiated vocational courses? 3. What 
are the more important qualifications for teachers in vocational 
courses ? 

EXPERIMENTS TO BE MADE. 

1. To determine the characteristics of 14 to 16 year old boys and 
girls who leave school on or soon after the completion of the compul- 
sory school period. 2. To discover methods of interesting each of 
the several types in self -improvement. 

In addition to the above, the committee has under consideration 
by different members such questions as the following: (1) By what 
means or in what terms can courses of study in manual arts be ade- 
quately expressed? (2) What constitutes a satisfactory training for 
teaching vocational courses, and in what way may it be gained? (3) 
What advantages may lie in checking and in giving school credit for 



COMMITTEE ON MANUAL AETS. 65 

home industrial work? (4) What special problems are there rela- 
tive to manual-arts courses in the rural high school ? 

It is significant that, while admitting that college preparation 
should not greatty concern the organizer of the secondary school, the 
majority of the members of the committee felt that it was important 
to discuss the value of manual-arts courses as preparation for college. 
It was suggested by Mr. Kingsley, at the conference at Philadelphia, 
that — 

The best way to prepare for college is to forget all about college entrance re- 
quirements and develop motives. Few students fail in college if, after com- 
pleting a well-planned high-scbool course, they go to college to secure what the 
college has to offer. We should ignore " preparation for college " in the nar- 
rower sense as a legitimate aim in high-school work. 

While we agree with the spirit of that statement, we are moved by 
three major considerations to insist that preparation for college must 
be taken into consideration in our discussion of the fundamental ques- 
tion submitted to our subcommittee, namely, What is the place of 
manual arts in secondary education ? r i nese three considerations are 
as follows: 

First. Whatever we may undertake in reorganizing the secondary 
school, we must be careful to avoid anything which will create the 
impression that some courses are held in less esteem than others or 
that they are not " open at the top." ' 

Second. For years to come there will be in our secondary schools 
principals and teachers who, no matter how valiantly our committee 
may assert that " the best preparation for life is the best preparation 
for college," will, nevertheless, regard as inferior any and all courses 
for which college entrance credit is not allowed. It is this attitude 
of the college-bred secondary-school teacher which constitutes the 
real domination of the college over the secondary school. Teachers 
of manual arts have had far too much experience in the past in trying 
to advance this subject in the face of this kind of opposition to allow 
them to forget the futility of trying to induce children to take the 
work when they understand that no " credit " is given for it. It is, 
unfortunately, true that the very children who have the least need of 
college credit and the least opportunity of making use of it are fre- 
quently deterred from taking those courses which are thus ranked as 
inferior. 

Third. We believe that manual arts may be so taught as to con- 
tribute to the intellectual power and social outlook to such an extent 
as to fully justify its acceptance as a part of preparation for college. 

In short, the committee, while reaching out after all the good that 
is promised by freedom from slavish adherence to educational tradi- 
tion, while welcoming every new influence from without the schools 
which will make the work more real and more vital, while striving 
10602°— 13 5 



66 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

especially to make the secondary school more attractive and of greater 
benefit to that large number of unschooled youths between 14 and 18 
years of age, yet believes that this can be accomplished without cur- 
tailing any opportunities which the schools now afford our million 
and a third high-school pupils. Diversity of direction, differentiation 
of purpose, attention to individual needs and aptitudes, these must be 
attained without losing sight of the demonstrated values of all the 
older and more thoroughly organized school subjects which have made 
the American school system the acknowledged success which it is 
to-day in spite of its critics. 

Frank M. Leavitt, Chairman. 

University or Chicago, Chicago, III. 

The other members of the committee on manual arts are as follows : 

Wilson H. Henderson, secretary of the committee, director vocational train- 
ing, Hammond, Ind. 

L. R. Abbott, director manual training, Grand Rapids, Mich. 

W. J. Bogan, principal Lane Techinai High School, Chicago, 111. 

G. F. Buxton, Stout Institute, Menomonie, Wis. 

P. W. Covert, Manual Training High School, Indianapolis, Ind. 

A. D. Dean, chief of division of vocational schools, Albany, N. Y. 

C. H. Howe, Stuyvesant High School, New York, N. Y. 

Ben Johnson, director manual and industrial education, Seattle, Wash. 

O. J. Kern, county superintendent of schools, Rockford, 111. 

C. W. Kirschner, principal Boardman Manual Training High School, New 
Haven, Conn. 

C. A. Maupin, principal Industrial High School, Columbus, Ga. 

E. E. McCready, director manual training, Newark, N. J. 

R. W. Selvidge, professor manual arts University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 

F. W. Turner, Mechanic Arts High School, Boston, Mass. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 

MUSIC. 

The qualities of thought and feeling out of which good music 
springs are highly desirable. They reflect a desire for beauty ; they 
reveal the spirit of man in its more profound and universal relations 
and impulses. In common with the other arts and literature, and 
perhaps in higher degree, music tends to develop finer subjective 
life in the individual. This is true not only while the music is 
sounding. The quality of thought and feeling out of which it 
springs remains after the music ceases. 

In public schools, where instruction in music is not primarily 
vocational or professional, the aim, conscious or unconscious, is 
obviously such subjective influence. A course in music that in due 
season and proper degree does not promise to adjust the learner in 
sympathetic response to the best music of the world is lacking in its 
proper quality, whatever marks of efficiency it may show. 



COMMITTEE ON MUSIC. 67 

Music in the grades has probably fulfilled its part in this develop- 
ment somewhat more efficiently than music in the high schools. 
Failure to bring the graduates of the public schools into sympathetic 
relation with the mature musical intelligence and interests of their 
various communities is not due so much to shortcomings in the work 
of the grades (though there are, of course, some such shortcomings 
in many places) as it is to neglect or sad misdirection of the work in 
high schools. 

The late Mr. W. S. B. Mathews distinguished three appeals that 
music makes : The first to the ear, as " purified crystallized sound " — 
a sensuous beauty which every musician demands always ; the second 
an appeal to the mind, depending upon memory, attention, percep- 
tion of the relation of part to part, as balanced and beautiful tonal 
discourse ; the third the appeal to the soul, as expressing mood, state 
of feeling, emotion. 

Children in the grades are taught to value beauty of tone and to 
secure it in their singing, both for the sake of their musical taste and 
for correct use of their own voices. Their short songs should have 
grace of melody and simple perfection of form, revealing grace and 
clarity of musical thinking; but these qualities are desirable as 
musical experience and are not consciously analyzed and consciously 
valued. The songs used also have mood or at least color, but the 
moods are, of course, childlike and are not the moods which the 
music of the masters expresses. These must remain incomprehen- 
sible until the individual approaches the larger experiences of life. 
Technically the pupil learns, by the end of the eighth year, almost 
all elementary theory, and to sing at sight fluently and in parts simple 
hymn tunes, and to sing with enjoyment, after some practice, a num- 
ber of the easier choruses from operas and oratorios, as well as some 
comparatively elaborate part songs. 

One point should not be overlooked— the pupil's line of approach 
to music has been, and in public schools must be, up to this time, 
purely that of the song. Dr. W. G. Chambers, in a most valuable 
essay entitled " Modern Psychology and Music Study," has pointed 
out what an unfortunate foundation this is, if not broadened, upon 
which to base an understanding of the great instrumental works 
which crown the heights of musical expression. But in truth no more 
than we have outlined can be normally accomplished in the eight 
grades. The musical forms used are, until the end of this period, too 
simple to present any elaborate thematic development, and the 
amount of technical proficiency to be gained is too great to leave time 
for conscious consideration of larger art values, even in phases of 
this investigation which might be deemed appropriate to the child 
below the age of adolescence. 



68 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

What practical and desirable developments then remain for the 
high school? A complete and correct answer to this question would 
mean a fulfillment of the task to which your committee is addressed. 
Before entering upon such answer it is well to note what often 
does follow. In many high schools this is nothing but a continued 
exercise, slightly extended, of the degree of power gained by the 
pupil in the eight grades below the high school. A graduation 
exercise in music might often appropriately mark the conclusion of 
the eighth year in school, for here, in many cases, ends the student's 
progress in musical knowledge and understanding. 

If Ave would have an adult public interested in and appreciative 
of the great music of the masters, we must have general instruction 
in advanced phases of musical study. This instruction is appropriate 
pud practicable in high schools, and to them properly belongs the task 
of articulating the music in the grades with the enlightened musical 
understanding and interest of the community. 

In the several branches of musical study recommended in the fol- 
lowing paragraphs it is assumed by the committee that this end — ■ 
namely, bringing the student into knowledge and understanding of 
the great music of the world — will be kept persistently in view. The 
classes of material recommended are chosen with relation to their 
efficiency in attaining this end and methods of administration that 
will operate toward securing it are suggested. 

ENSEMBLE SINGING. 

In choosing material for ensemble singing it should not be for- 
gotten that music, while it may ally itself with sentiments of religion, 
patriotism, love of home, and so forth, and while it should never 
ally itself with less worthy associations, is yet not to be valued upon 
the nature of such alliance. For music is essentially tone and tonal 
discourse and is beautiful as music in proportion to the beauty of 
tone, the beauty of the tonal procedure, and the beauty and nobility 
of mood out of which it sprang. Music, in short, need express 
musical thought only. Until this is admitted, understanding of mu- 
sical beauty as a thing in itself can not be undertaken. Therefore, no 
commonplace tune, badly harmonized, should be admitted because 
the text associated with it means well. At least must this be true 
for all new music. Certain old melodies, quite unregarded as music 
either originally or now, but saved from extinction in the first in- 
stance by alliance with a text of value, and at present by tradition 
and many hallowed associations — these should be preserved so long 
as their appeal remains and while their use is not wholly perfunc- 
tory. We admit these because we are human beings, not because we 
are musical. But since the persons who respond to general human 



COMMITTEE ON MUSIC. 69 

sentiments are more numerous than those who respond to these same 
sentiments plus a response to purely musical beauties, there has been, 
and is, danger that the power to awaken such general humanistic 
response should be regarded as the one necessary quality in a song, 
and our chorus activities are therefore vitiated by the use of a 
number of songs no one of which would be regarded by musicians 
as belonging to the realm of music at all, and no one of which is in 
the same idiom as that music which all concede it is the purpose of 
a musical education to lead the student to love and enjoy. 

While ensemble singing must in the nature of the case be the most 
general and basic music activity in a public-school system, it must be 
admitted that wise administration in this work is more necessary 
than in any other branch of musical study recommended if breadth 
of musical interest and understanding on the part of the students is 
to be the result. It can not be gainsaid that a pupil may sing during 
his entire high-school term the sort of songs that are sung in many 
high schools, study them in the manner in which they are studied in 
these schools, and come forth at the end of the time as remote from 
understanding and enjoyment of a Beethoven symphony or sonata as 
he would have been had he lacked such practice. This is not to be 
understood as meaning that he does not derive many other sorts of 
benefit from the practice. It does mean, however, that his participa- 
tion as an adult in the progressive musical activities of his community 
is not made certain by the course of instruction which he has under- 
gone. Not only does the comparative emphasis usually given the sub- 
ject and text divert attention from purely musical values, but the 
physical exhilaration of singing may readily be mistaken for general 
musical enjoyment. Further, the songs may be selected largely be- 
cause of their appropriateness to certain occasions, such as class days, 
field days, arbor day, patriotic festivals, etc., and in such case musical 
merit usually has to be sacrificed or can not be a prime factor in the 
choice of songs. 

After material which has specific musical merit is chosen, its ap- 
propriateness to the voices and capacities of the adolescent singers 
must be considered, and a method of presentation must be found that 
will lead to wider musical interest and understanding. As any and 
all of the four years in high school are recommended for chorus prac- 
tice, and as such principles of selection of music and presentation 
vary for the different years, the remaining recommendations are 
treated under two heads. 

CHORUS PRACTICE IN FIRST AND SECOND YEARS. 

In interest and articulation with the earlier experience of the pupils, 
chorus practice appeals especially to first and second year students; 
but in respect to voices, these two years are for many pupils quite 



70 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

unfortunate, and a wise selection of musical material within a limited 
range is therefore necessary, as well as a careful and frequently 
repeated examination of each individual voice and a judicious assign- 
ment of each pupil to his appropriate vocal part. Mere efficient con- 
quering of one song after another, with no thought for comparative 
musical merit, should not constitute the practice. Correct use of the 
voice and intelligent phrasing and interpretation of music in general 
should be the rule. Further, if the students are not yet proficient in 
sight singing and thoroughly well informed in elementary theory, 
these should be taught in connection with this chorus work. If, how- 
ever, high-school standards which imply such abilities have been 
reached, the general incidental study should take the line of musical 
appreciation. Structural features of the songs should be pointed out 
and some knowledge of musical form should be gained. Motivation, 
the phrase, sequences should be studied. Some knowledge of the com- 
posers should be gained and the use of selections from operas, ora- 
torios, or cantatas should be made the occasion for some study of 
these forms. Every eifort should be made to broaden the student's 
general musical horizon through the medium of his interest and par- 
ticipation in chorus work. 

CHORUS PRACTICE IN THIRD AND FOURTH YEARS. 

The voices being more mature, the collateral lines of study should 
be different. Continuation of the incidental musical appreciation 
work recommended in connection with first and second year chorus 
practice is still advised. An invaluable activity further is the learn- 
ing and performing of some suitable standard choral work every 
semester by the school chorus, assisted by excellent soloists and accom- 
panied by a large orchestra. No surer means can be found to place 
the student in sympathetic relation to the advanced musical interests 
in his community. 

MUSICAL APPRECIATION. 

The work recommended along lines of musical appreciation, in con- 
nection with chorus practice, was incidental, the intention being to 
prevent an entirely undiscriminating and unappreciative attitude 
toward music in its " absolute " phases. Such study could not be 
thorough were it desired to make it so, for the forms presented would 
be in the main comparatively short, would all be vocal, and would 
present the easier works of a limited number of composers only, and 
these probably in vitally altered transcriptions and arrangements. A 
fctrong course of study of great musical literature should therefore be 
offered. This is continually growing more practicable because of 
improvements in and the increasing use of mechanical instruments 



COMMITTEE ON MUSIC. 71 

for reproducing such music, as, for instance, the player piano, the 
talking machine, and the player organ. With the help of any or all 
of these and the assistance of local musicians, vocal and instrumental, 
in addition to what the class and the teacher can provide, working as 
a chorus and also in solo capacities, a course such as that outlined in 
the following paragraphs can be presented more or less exhaustively 
and with results in the education of the students that are of inesti- 
mable value. 

Musical appreciation as a high-school study is particularly appro- 
priate for third and fourth year students, as the mature quality of 
thought and feeling with which great music is invested is largely 
incomprehensible prior to these years to any but the exceptional boy 
or girl. A musical experience and a technical foundation that can 
be gained only in the first two years are also necessary ; and two years 
of chorus practice, such as was outlined, or two years of harmony or 
of orchestra ensemble are therefore recommended prior to under- 
taking this course. This recommendation is made notwithstanding 
the fact that classes of first and second year students in this branch 
have been known to members of the committee to make excellent 
progress. 

The course in musical appreciation includes study of musical his- 
tory, form, biography of musicians and aesthetics of music, but is not 
specifically any one of these. The course is best planned, therefore, 
through the selection of a large number of compositions which are 
to constitute the subject matter. These should be chosen on the fol- 
lowing bases: (1) They should represent a large number of master 
composers, ancient and modern, in so far as the works of these mas- 
ters engage the attention of the world to-day; (2) they should rep- 
resent all important media of expression, as piano, orchestra, chorus, 
solo voice, solo instruments, chamber music ensembles, etc.; (3) they 
should represent all varieties of form and all larger forms, as the 
pong forms, sonata form, rondo, etc., and the opera, oratorio, cantata, 
mass, etc.; (4) as representing either a composer or a form or style, 
they should be characteristic of that composer's form or style at his 
or its best and most individual moments. 

The compositions chosen are to be heard and studied repeatedly,, 
individually, as representative, in the ways specified, and compara- 
tively. They are furthermore to be studied in relation to musical 
aesthetics, with regard to the nature and validity of the musical 
ideas upon which they rest and the degree of success attained in 
reaching these ideals. The lecture method with library reference is 
recommended, as textbooks of the exact kind needed are hardly to be 
found, if at all. Where possible, reported concert attendance shouM 
be a feature of the work. 



72 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

HARMONY. 

Inasmuch as this subject demands primarily quick and sensitive 
perception and retentive memory, it is especially appropriate to the 
first two years in high school, though it could well be substituted for 
musical appreciation in the last two years. The requisite talent for 
its study is not so great or so rare as is commonly supposed, but as 
musical interest is necessary it should be made an elective stud}\ 

An academic presentation of the subject, such as that found in 
almost all the older textbooks, is to be heartily condemned. The fol- 
lowing features should be invariable: 

(a) Ear training, carried throughout and at appropriate stages in- 
volving aural recognition of any interval, any triad as major, minor, 
diminished or augmented, any seventh chord (as to its intervals), 
of any tone and of any chord as to its scale relations, of any chord 
progression, of any modulation as to its harmonic procedure and the 
keys involved, of organ points, suspensions, anticipations; in short, 
involving aural recognition of all the harmonic material learned and 
used through the eye and symbols of notation. 

(b) Instruction in the canons of melody writing; tendencies of 
melodic tones, melodic contour; motivation, the phrase, the process of 
coherent musical thought, the period. 

(c) Harmonization of melodies (original or given) rather than 
harmonization of figured basses. (Thorough bass should be taught, 
but should constitute only a small part of the practice.) 

(d) Harmonic analysis as revealing accepted musical usage by 
composers of the chord material presented. 

(e) Freedom and musical proficiency in the use of harmonic ma- 
terial. Every harmonic factor is like a new word in the student's 
vocabulary, and is to be used by him in constructing numerous musi- 
cal sentences until he is familiar with all of its merits, powers, and 
special qualities. 

COUNTERPOINT. 

This branch must be considered as an exceptional offering, possible 
only under especially favorable conditions, unless included under 
harmony. Three suggestions are offered as to its organization in a 
course and these are in what is believed to be their order of merit : 

First. It may be included under harmony in a two-year's course, 
following the methods that seek to combine these two aspects of tonal 
organization, such as those of Percy Goetschins. 

Second. It may be included in a four-years' course in contra- 
puntal harmony and composition, after this same method of com- 
bination. 

Third. It may follow, as a separate two-years' course, the two years 
of harmony above advised. 



COMMITTEE ON MUSIC. 73 

ORCHESTRA ENSEMBLE. 

This branch of musical study and practice should he an invariable 
offering. It should be open to any student qualifying for all four 
high-school years. 

The musicianship that results naturally from ensemble playing is 
more advanced than that which arises naturally from ensemble sing- 
ing. More hours of practice and preparation are necessary before 
successful participation is possible; the expression of the musical 
thought or impulse is less direct than in singing and becomes a 
matter, therefore, of greater reflection ; the mechanical nature of the 
medium of expression makes sight reading and a knowledge of staff 
notation more exact; the number and diversity of the orchestral 
parts— diversity in pitch, tonal quality, and rhythmic procedure — 
make the whole a richer complex than is presented in chorus work ; 
and this complexity and variety have attracted composers to orches- 
tral expression for their greatest works. 

Nevertheless the course in orchestral ensemble must be guarded, if 
it attains its best ends. The following recommendations are therefore 
urged : 

First. The instruments should be played in the manner of their solo 
capacities, the ideals of chamber music and the refined treatment of 
each part in a symphony orchestra being ever kept in mind. 

Second. Music should be selected that, however easy, still recog- 
nizes these particular values for each and every instrument. 

Third. The orchestra should be considered an orchestral class or 
orchestral study club primarily, and a factor for the diversion of the 
school only incidentally. 

Fourth. Instruments should be bought by or for the school, to re- 
main school property, and these should be loaned, under proper re- 
strictions, to students who will learn to play them. Instruments such 
as the double bass, timpani, French horn, oboe, bassoon (or any less 
rare that are yet usually lacking in any particular school) should be 
bought. Only by such means can orchestral richness and sonority be 
secured, the real idiom of orchestra be exemplified, and advanced 
orchestral literature be made practicable to the students. 

Fifth. Seventh and eighth grade orchestras, similarly conducted 
and equipped with a like generous outfit of school-owned instruments 
should be organized as training schools for the high-school orchestra. 

CREDIT FOR MUSIC APPLIED UNDER SPECIAL TEACHERS OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL. 

It is recommended that study of voice, piano, organ, violin, or any 
orchestral instrument, under special teachers outside of the school, 
when seriously undertaken and properly examined and certified, shall 
receive equal credit with any academic, five-hour study regularly 



74 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDAKY EDUCATION. 

pursued in high school, and shall be accepted in substitution for any 
regular school work that would command the same amount of credit. 
This recommendation is based upon the following considerations : 

(a) The proficiency gained in singing or playing during the high- 
school period by many boys and girls proves, in a number of cases, 
to be of greater value to the individual in later life than any attain- 
ment gained in school in the same number of hours. 

(b) Notwithstanding that most adults believe it desirable that 
young people should learn to sing or play an instrument, a severe 
handicap is put upon them in this respect by the necessity of attend- 
ing, at the same time, to the heavy demands of their general educa- 
tion; and many students, including, even, a number who expect to be 
musicians, abandon or neglect music during their high-school years, 
when the greatest progress can and should be made, rather than 
jeopardize the securing of a diploma by neglecting some one branch 
of the regular course. 

(c) We regard as untenable the assumption, expressed or implied, 
that an individual would be uneducated if he pursued three or four 
regular studies per year for four years and added music to these, but 
would be educated if he pursued four or five studies each year for 
four years and dropped music. 

(<7) We believe that this untenable assumption is not due to any 
active solution of the question of the place of music in an educational 
plan, but rather to a passive acceptance of traditional academic 
standards that are now outgrown and should be abandoned. 

Choruses of boys, choruses of girls (glee clubs), and brass bands 
may under some conditions be deemed desirable. If organized, the 
general provisions recommended for securing educational value in 
chorus and orchestral work should be held to apply. 

It is not expected that each high school shall offer all the branches 
here recommended. The offerings that presumably would be desir- 
able in high schools of varying sizes were recommended in a report 
on high-school music made by a committee (Will Earhart. chair- 
man) of the music supervisors' national conference to that body 
and adopted by them in St. Louis in 1912. This report also made cer- 
tain recommendations as to the scholastic organization of all music 
work with respect to the number of hours, points credit, etc. 

In adopting the report just mentioned, the music supervisors' 
national conference voted to include as an amendment an added 
article which should further recommend the crediting of musical 
study under teachers outside the school. This recommendation has 
already been made at length in the earlier part of this report. 

Will Earhart, Chairman. 

Pittsburgh, Pa. 



COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS. 75 

" The other members of the committee on music are as follows : 

E. B. Birge, supervisor of music, Indianapolis, Ind. 
Henrietta G. Baker, supervisor of music, Baltimore, Md. 
Ralph L. Baldwin, supervisor of music, Hartford, Conn. 
Hollis E. Dann, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Charles H. Farnsworth, Columbia University, New York, N. Y. 
C. A. Fullerton, State Normal School, Cedar Falls, Iowa. 
Karl W. Gehrkens, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. 
Osborne McConathy, director of music, Chelsea, Mass. 
W. Otto Miessner, supervisor of music, Oak Park, 111. 
Carrie McMackin, supervisor of music, Spartanburg, S. C. 
Mrs. Parsons, director of music, Los Angeles, Cal. 
Charles I. Rice, supervisor of music, Woi'cester, Mass. 
Elsie M. Shaw, supervisor of music, St. Paul, Minn. 



STATEMENT OF CHAIKMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 

BUSINESS. 

This committee held a meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday, March 
1, 1913, at the William Penn High School, and another at the State 
normal school, Salem, Mass., August 28, 1913. The statement that 
follows is a resume of the work of the committee prepared by the 
chairman : 

AIM OF THE COMMERCIAL COURSE. 

The general aim of the high school is assumed to be — 

1. To provide the student with the proper physical equipment, 
through instruction in physiology, hygiene, and by physical training. 

2. To provide instruction in citizenship, through courses in civics 
and through social organizations of the school. 

3. To lay the foundation for a broad appreciation of life, through 
courses in science, literature, art, music, etc. 

The special aim of the commercial course is to enable the student 
to fill a place in commercial life. The course should be so planned 
as to equip the student to earn his livelihood immediately, in case 
he leaves before completion of the course, and also to equip him to 
fill more responsible positions as they may oifer in the future. 

SHALL SHORT COURSES BE GIVEN ? 

The answers usually made to the question depend upon the ex- 
perience and location of the schools in which the experiment has 
been made. Fewer schools than formerly are now giving short 
courses. Some schools have changed from the short course to the 
long course, but there is yet no record of a school which has changed 
from a long course to the short course. The movement for short 
courses has received an impetus from the development of the vo- 



76 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

cational courses given in several New England schools. The an- 
swer to the question. Do short courses give adequate preparation 
for commercial life, depends largely upon one's ideals of a student's 
commercial equipment. Where the aim is to secure for the stu- 
dent in as short a time as possible a position where he can earn 
his bread and butter, the short course is popularly advocated. 
Where the aim is to start the student on a commercial career worthy 
of the name, the long course is given. It may be possible to combine 
both elements and to plan a course so that at the end of each year 
some definite object is attained, and that a unit course might be 
regarded as terminating at the end of any year. Due care must be 
taken, however, not to lose continuity in instruction, for there is a 
certain momentum acquired by giving instruction in a subject con- 
tinuously throughout several years. A course planned in yearly 
units might offer a wider range of electives than is now offered in 
commercial work, mathematics, and modern languages. The prin- 
ciple of election has won its way in the general courses, but it has 
apparently a harder battle before it in the special courses. 

SHOULD COMMERCIAL WORK BE GIVEN IN THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH 
GRADES OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL? 

When one considers the abilities of seventh and eighth grade pupils, 
and what the business world demands of them, one realizes that 
commercial work given to such pupils must be very elementary in its 
character. The business man demands of such pupils the ability to 
write simple business letters, facility in the ordinary arithmetical 
operations, some general knowledge of business, such as how goods 
are bought, sold, ordered, charged, and delivered, and some knowl- 
( due of the materials of commerce. This is a demand which is not 
very different from the demand that the community makes upon all 
pupils of the seventh and eighth grades. On the other hand, if 
the aim of instruction in the seventh and eighth grades is to en;: e 
the pupil to determine his future vocation, he should have an oppor- 
tunity to try not only commercial work, but industrial work as well. 
With the extension of departmental work in the seventh and eighth 
grades, it is possible to give the pupil an opportunity to test the dif- 
ferent vocational fields. The suggested content of prevocational 
commercial work includes penmanship, commercial arithmetic, busi- 
ness forms, related customs, and simple accounts. An introductory 
commercial course should be given in the high school also for 
students who did not take it in the elementary school, in order to 
carry out fully the ideal of the seventh and eighth grades as a test- 
ing period. The general consensus of opinion seems to be in favor 
of an increasing amount of specialized work in the later years of the 
course. 



COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS. 77 

PLANS FOB COMMITTEE WORK. 

The committee plans to make a special study of the legitimate 
demands upon the schools for commercial training from the various 
groups of occupations. Occupations whose demands are to be 
studied are: (1) Agriculture, (2) manufacturing, (3) banking, (4) 
insurance, (5) transportation, (6) civil service, (7) professional 
offices, (8) wholesale establishments, and (9) retail establishments. 
The committee also proposes to study the various groups of subjects 
included in the commercial course, as follows: (1) Business technique, 
(2) secretarial and office training, (3) business English, (4) eco- 
nomics, commercial geography, and industrial history, (5) science 
and its applications, (6) advertising, and (7) salesmanship. Each 
member of the general committee will be expected to serve upon one 
subcommittee in the occupation group and one subcommittee in the 
subject group. This committee work will start early in 1914. In the 
meanwhile the committee will try to get in touch with persons who 
are willing and able to serve on these committees and to consider 
some of the general problems connected with the aim of commercial 
education, as commercial instruction in the seventh and eighth 
grades, the possibility of part-time instruction, etc. A special effort 
will be made through the National Chamber of Commerce and local 
chambers of commerce and boards of trade to enlist business men in 
the work of the committee in ascertaining the definite demands of 
commercial work upon the schools. 

Some of the special problems of the commercial course that have 
been suggested to the committee are listed below. The committee 
would like more of these questions and is especially desirous of learn- 
ing of the experiences of various schools with these or similar 
problems. 

1. Is it possible to teach the elements of accounting in high schools? 

2. Is it possible to teach business organization in high schools; and if so, to 

what extent should it be taught? 

3. What equipment of mechanical devices used in offices should be used in 

schools ? 

4. What modifications of stenographic systems by the teacher are permissible? 

5. Leaving cost of equipment out of consideration, is it desirable to teach 

typewriting as an office art before stenography? 

6. What is an ideal arrangement of hours in stenography and typewriting? 

Should it be spread over a long period, with a few hours of instruction 
per week, or concentrated in a short period, with many hours of instruc- 
tion per week? 

7. What should be the content of the business-practice course? 

8. How should spelling be taught? 

9. Should business correspondence be divided into two courses, namely, (a) 

an elementary course containing the elementary work to be given in the 
early part of the course, and (ft) an advanced course devoted to such 
problems as " follow-up " systems, selling goods by mail, etc. ? 



78 REORGANIZATION OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. 

10. Can advertising be taught in high schools? 

11. What practice work can be done in advertising? 

12. How can the English and art departments cooperate in teaching advertising? 

13. Can salesmanship be taught in high schools? 

14. Is it worth while to teach advertising and salesmanship to boys and girls 

of high-school age? 

15. How much time should be devoted to the study of local business conditions? 

16. Should history and history of commerce be taught as separate subjects? If 

taught as separate subjects, should history of commerce be taught before 
or after economics? 

17. What economic problems should be considered in the high-school course? 

(Those most commonly considered now are trusts, banking and cur- 
rency, labor, and transportation.) 
IS. In order to avoid the encyclopedic instruction of the older commercial 
geography, to what countries and products shall we limit the instruction, 
and which should we teach in detail? 

19. Should the materials of commerce form the subject matter of a separate 

course, or should the material be given in connection with the sciences of 
the secondary schools, namely, biology, chemistry, and physics? 

20. Should a fourth-year course be given in practical chemistry? Would the 

expense of the laboratory equipment required for such a course make it 
prohibitive'.' 

21. How shall commercial schools secure the cooperation of business men? 

22. To what extent shall we ask outside experts to give talks to the school or 

to classes? 

23. What should be the content of the mathematical courses in commercial 

high schools? 

24. How can the commercial school carry on part-time work? 

LC>. Should not students of marked ability in the senior class who fill positions 
satisfactorily during the last 10 weeks of the course be permitted to gradu- 
ate without taking an examination? 

A. L. Pugh, Chairman. 
High School of Commerce, 

New York City. 

The other members of the committee on business are as follows: 

Wm. A. Barber, East Orange High School, East Orange. N. J. 
W. E. Bartholomew, State commercial inspector. Albany. N. Y. 
J. S. Curry, High School of Commerce, Cleveland, Ohio. 
Carlos B. Ellis, principal High School of Commerce, Springfield, Mass. 
It. A. Grant, McKinley High School. St. Louis, Mo. 
Cheesman A. Herrick, president of Girard College, Philadelphia, Pa. 
S. B. Koopnian. High School of Commerce. New York, N. Y. 
Selby A. Moran, Ann Arbor High School, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
L. C. Rusmisel, High School of Commerce, Omaha, Nebr. 
Parke Schoch, principal West Philadelphia High School for Girls. Philadel- 
phia. Pa. 

A. H. Sproul, Normal School, Salem. Mass. 

A. T. Swift, English High School, Providence, R. I. 

Frank V. Thompson, assistant superintendent of schools, Boston, Mass. 

Ernest Thurston, assistant superintendent of schools, Washington, D. C. 

W. H. Wigam, R. T. Crane High School, Chicago, 111. 



INDEX 



Ancient languages. See Languages, ancient. 

Barnard, J. L., community civics, 18-20. 

Berlitz method, modern languages, 4-5. 

Biology, civic, study, 21. 

Bureh, H. It., on study of economics. 24-25 

Business education, statement of 'Chairman, 75-78. 

Chambers, W. G., on modern psychology and music study, 67. 

Chorus practice, first and second years, 69-70. 

Citizenship. See Civics. 

Civics, community, 18-22, theory and practice, 26-27. 

Commercial courses. See Business education. 

Commercial texts and business correspondence, 44. 

Commission, origin, membership, and plan of work, 7-9. 

Committee of Twelve of the Modern Language Association of America, report, 

45, 55. 
Community health, value of study, 21. 
Cooking. See Household arts. 
Corporations, study of workings, 25. 
Counterpoint, study, 72. 

Daniels, A. L., statement of chairman on household arts, 58-62. 
Domestic science. See Household arts. 
Doty, A. I., and comparative study of scholarship. 33. 
Earhart, Will, statement of chairman of committee on music, 66-75. 
Economics, study, 24-27. 
English language, aims, 12 ; plan of study, 11 ; problems, 14-16 ; statement of 

chairman of committee, 9-16. 
Foods, study, 60-61. 

Foster, W. E., statement of chairman on study of ancient languages, 29-31. 
German, study, 33. 

Gouin-Betis system, modern languages, 50-51. 
Gouin system, modern languages, 45. 
Government, and public welfare, 27. 
Harmony, study, 72. 
Health, community, value of study, 21. 
Heness-Sauveur system, modern languages, 45. 
History, provisional suggestions, 23-24. 
History, three unit courses, 24. 

Hosic, J. F., statement of chairman of the committee on English. 9-16. 
Household arts, statement of chairman of committee, 58-62. 
Jones, T. J., on teaching of civics, 26-27 ; statement of chairman on social 

studies, 16-27. 
Kingsley, C. D., statement regarding commission, 7-9. 
Laboratories, high school, 28. 
Languages, ancient, statement of chairman, 32-40. 

79 



80 



INDEX 



Languages, modern, choice of material for beginners, 48-19 ; statement of chair- 
man on study, 40-58. 
Latin, status in secondary schools, 32—10. 
Leavitt, F. M., statement of chairman on manual arts, 62-66. 
Manual arts, statement of chairman of committee, 62-66. 
Mathews, W. S. B., on music instruction, 67. 
Middletown (Conn.) High School, survey of vocations, 22. 
Modern languages. See Languages, modern. 
Music, statement of chairman of committee on music. 66-75. 
Musical appreciation, 70-71. 

National Council of Teachers of English, and study of English, 10. 
Natural science, study, 28-31. 
Orchestra ensemble, course, 73. 

Orr, William, statement of chairman on science teaching, 29-31. 
Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, course in civics, 18-20. 
Phonetics. See Pronunciation. 

Pronunciation, teaching, modern languages, 46^7, 49. 
Pugh, A. L., statement of chairman on business education, 75-78. 
Robinson, J. H., on study of history, 23-24. 
Science, teaching, 28-31. 
Sewing. See Household arts. 
Singing, ensemble, choosing material, 68-69. 
Snow, W. B., statement of chairman on modern languages, 40-58. 
Social studies, statement of chairman, 16-27. 
Teachers, modern languages, 56-58. 
Textbooks, modern languages, 56-57. 
Textiles and clothing, study, 60-61. 
Translation, modern languages, 50, 52-53. 
United States, productive system, study. 25. 
Vocations, survey, 22. 
Wheatley, W. A., survey of vocations, 22. 

o 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 



(Continued from p. 2 of cover.) 
1913. 

No..l. Monthly record of current educational publications, January, 1913. 

No. 2. Training courses for rural teachers. A. C. Monahan and R. H. Wright. 

No. 3. The teaching of modern languages in the United States. 0. H. Handschin. 

No. 4. Present standards of higher education. George Edwin MacLean. 

No. 5. Monthly record of current educational publications, February, 1913. 

No. 6. Agricultural instruction in high schools. C. H. Robison and F. B. Jenks. 

No. 7. College entrance requirements. Clarence D. Kingsley. 

No. 8. The status of rural education. A. C. Monahan. 

No. 9. Consular reports on continuation schools in Prussia. 

No. 10. Monthly record of current educational publications, March, 1913. 

No. 11. Monthly record of current educational publications, April, 1913. 
*No. 12. The promotion of peace. Fannie Fern Andrews. 10 cts. 

No. 13. Standards of measuring the efficiency of schools. G. D. Strayer. 

No. 14. Agricultural instruction in secondary schools. 
"No. 15. Monthly record of current educational publications, M^y, 1913. 5 cts. 

No. 16. Bibliography of medical inspection and health supervision. 

No. 17. A trade school for girls. 

No. 18. Congress on hygiene and demography. Fletcher B. Dresslar. 

No. 19. German industrial education. Holmes Beckwith. 

No. 20. Illiteracy in the United States. 
*No. 21. Monthly record of current educational publications, June, 1913. 5 cts. 

No. 22. Bibliography of industrial, vocational, and trade education. 

No. 23. The Georgia Club. E.C.Branson. 

No. 24. Education in Germany and the United States. G. Kerschensteiner. 

No. 25. Industrial education in Columbus, Ga. R. B. Daniel. 
*No. 26. Good roads arbor day. Susan B. Sipe. 10 cts. 

No. 27. Prison schools. A. C. Hill. 
♦No. 28. Expressions on education by American statesmen and publicists. 5 cts. 

No. 29. Accredited secondary schools in the United States. K. G. Babcock. 
*No. 30. Education in the South. 10 cts. 

No. 31. Special features in city school systems. 

No. 32. Educational survey of Montgomery County, Md. 
*No. 33. Monthly record of current educational publications, Sept., 1913. 5 cts. 

No. 34. Teachers' pension systems in Great Britain. R. W. Sies. 

No. 35. A list of books suited to a high-school library. 

No. 36. Work of the Bureau of Education for the natives of Alaska, 1912. 

No. 37. Monthly record of current educational publications, Oct., 1913. 

No. 38. Economy of time in education. 

No. 39. The elementary industrial school of Cleveland, Ohio. 

No. 40. The reorganized school playground. £L S. Curtis. 







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